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Category Archives: Deaths in the Troubles
Deaths in Northern Ireland Troubles
The Rise & Fall of UDA Brigadier of Bling James Gray – AKA " Doris Day"
July 24, 2018 Deaths in the Troubles, Major events in The Troubles, Uncategorized" Doris Day", Brigadier of Bling, James Gray, Johnny Adair, UDAbelfastchildis
The Rise & Fall of UDA Brigadier of Bling James Gray
AKA " Doris Day"
James Gray (1958 – 4 October 2005), known as Jim Gray, was a Northern Irish loyalist and the East Belfast brigadier of the Ulster Defence Association (UDA), the largest Ulster loyalist paramilitary organisation in Northern Ireland.
He was often nicknamed "Doris Day" for his flamboyant clothing, jewellery, and dyed blond hair. Another media nickname for Gray was the "Brigadier of Bling". He was the owner of several bars in East Belfast.
Belfast, Northern Ireland
4 October 2005 (aged 46–47)
East Belfast, Northern Ireland
Ulster Defence Association (UDA)
East Belfast Brigade
The Troubles
– Disclaimer –
The views and opinions expressed in these pages/documentaries are soley intended to educate and provide background information to those interested in the Troubles of Northern Ireland. They in no way reflect my own opinions and I take no responsibility for any inaccuracies or factual errors.
Gray, the son of James and Elizabeth Gray, was born in 1958 and raised a Protestant in East Belfast. He had one sister, Elizabeth. He left school at age 15 and had ambitions of becoming a professional golfer, playing off a handicap of three.
He briefly worked at the Short Brothers' factory but did not hold the job long as he was heavily involved in petty crime with the Tartan gangs prevalent in loyalist areas at the time.
Ulster Defence Association
According to an interview in the Sunday World with his ex-wife Anne Tedford, to whom a youthful Gray was married for four years (a marriage that produced one son, Jonathan), Gray joined the loyalist paramilitary Ulster Defence Association (UDA) when she was in maternity hospital. She claimed that Gray was offered a lift home by a near-neighbour, Gary Matthews, who was already a UDA member, and that Matthews had Gray sworn in as a member soon afterwards.
He eventually rose to become brigadier of the East Belfast Brigade, taking over after Ned McCreery was killed by the UDA in 1992.
Who killed UDA Boss?
Nicknamed "Doris Day" and the "Brigadier of Bling", Gray, who was 6'3″ in height, became known as the most flamboyant leader in the UDA with his dyed blond bouffant hair, permanent suntan, gold earring, ostentatious jewellery, and expensive pastel clothing.
In their book UDA – Inside the Heart of Loyalist Terror, journalists Henry McDonald and Jim Cusack described him as "looking more like an ageing New Romantic" than the leader of a paramilitary organisation.
He once attended a UDA meeting with the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, John Reid wearing a loud Hawaiian-print shirt with a pink jumper draped over his shoulders.
A heavy cocaine user, Gray made large amounts of money from selling drugs, protection racketeering, and extortion.
Gray's criminal empire was reported to have made him one of the richest brigadiers in UDA history. He also acquired several bars in his native east Belfast. One of these, the "Avenue One" in Templemore Avenue, he used as the headquarters for his substantial criminal empire. He lived in an expensive luxury flat in an exclusive private residence and was protected by a devoted gang dubbed "the Spice Boys".
Rangers 3 Celtic 2…Amazing Penny Arcade & Blue Sea Of Ibrox
A supporter of Rangers, Gray was reported as knowing a number of players personally and meeting them during his regular visits to Ibrox Park
Renowned for his violent temper, he once allegedly brutally beat then stomped on a man's head during an outdoor Rod Stewart concert at Stormont in full view of the audience. On another occasion, he violently attacked a man with a golf club after the latter had beaten him in a game of golf. For that assault, Gray was barred from the Ormeau Golf Club.
He had allegedly ordered the killing of his predecessor McCreery, whom he accused of being a police informer. Gray then took over his brigade and one of his pubs. In January 2001, the gunman, Geordie Legge met a grisly end, allegedly at the hands of Gray and his henchmen. Legge had reportedly denounced Gray's organised criminal racket and tried to interfere with Gray's lucrative drug-dealing, and he was repeatedly tortured and stabbed to death inside "The Bunch of Grapes", another of Gray's east Belfast pubs.
After the killing, Legge's body was placed in a carpet and dumped outside Belfast. Legge's knife wounds were so severe that his head was almost severed from the body. The pub was set on fire to eliminate the signs of the torture that had been carried out inside. Gray was one of the mourners who attended Legge's funeral.
Gray and his right-hand man Gary Matthews, who co-owned the Bunch of Grapes, sought to claim on their insurance for the pub fire and sued AXA when they refused to pay out. Gray and Matthews were eventually forced to drop the case as the judge did not accept their version of events surrounding the fire and AXA successfully argued that they had not disclosed their UDA membership when they took out the policy.
The following year on 13 September 2002, Gray was shot in the face by UDA rivals; the plastic surgery to repair the considerable facial injuries cost £11,000. The shooting, which was blamed on West Belfast Brigadier Johnny Adair, had been described by the police as "loosely related" to the death of Stephen Warnock, a Loyalist Volunteer Force (LVF) leader, in one of the loyalist feuds.
Adair had previously started a whispering campaign against both Gray and John Gregg of the UDA South East Antrim Brigade, claiming both men were to be stood down as part of his attempts to take full control of the UDA.
As part of this Adair, who was close to the LVF, had visited the Warnock family and suggested that Gray had been involved in their relative's death (which had actually been carried out by a hired Red Hand Commando gunman after Warnock refused to pay a drug debt to a North Down businessman).
As a result, Gray was shot by a lone gunman after he left the Warnock home, where he had been paying his respects to the deceased. On 25 September, Gray discharged himself from the Ulster Hospital to attend a meeting of all the brigadiers bar Adair at which he, John Gregg, Jackie McDonald, Billy McFarland and Andre Shoukri found Adair guilty of treason for his role in Gray's shooting and released a press statement to the effect that Adair was expelled from the UDA.
Two weeks after the attack, Gray flew to Tenerife for a holiday.[citation needed] He allegedly owned property in Spain.
Gray's son, Jonathan, died of a drugs overdose in 2002 while with his father on holiday in Thailand. An October 2005 report by the Belfast Telegraph claimed that Jim Gray was bisexual and would regularly take holidays to Thailand to have sex with teenage boys.
Loyalists Episode
Expulsion and arrest
Gray was expelled by the UDA leadership in March 2005, for "treason" and "building a criminal empire outside the UDA", according to the South Belfast brigadier, Jackie McDonald. It was suggested that Gray was a Special Branch informer who passed on information to the police about his friends and associates.
In April that year, he was arrested whilst driving; several thousand pounds were found in the car, and the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) believed he was intending to travel to the Republic of Ireland with what they suspected to be the proceeds of drug dealing and extortion. Gray was charged with money laundering, and held in custody until September when he was released on bail.
During this time, police raids on a number of locations brought in thousands of documents related to this investigation. At the same time the prominent Belfast estate agent Philip Johnston was also arrested under suspicion of money laundering.
Gray was replaced as head of the UDA East Belfast Brigade by Jimmy Birch.
Shooting death
Gray was shot five times in the back and killed outside his father's house in the east Belfast Clarawood estate on 4 October 2005, by two unknown gunmen. The shooting took place at 8 p.m. while he was unloading weight-lifting equipment from the boot of his silver Mini Cooper.
As his body lay on the front lawn, local people took photos and passed the news to others via their mobile phones.
According to Gray's father, his son had left the house after Gary Matthews arrived to give him a set of weights and cigarettes that he had bought for Gray in Spain. Shots rang out and when Gray's father went out to see what had happened he found his son had been shot and Matthews was ringing for an ambulance.
The involvement of other loyalist factions was suspected, fueling speculation that he was murdered to prevent him making an agreement with the police to expose his former associates in the UDA. Six people were arrested on suspicion of involvement in the murder,
Ultimately however no charges were brought with the investigating officer, Detective Inspector Deborah McMaster, admitting at Gray's inquest in 2007 that the police had largely given up on securing any convictions due to a lack of evidence.
East Belfast MP Peter Robinson (later First Minister of Northern Ireland from 2008 to January 2016) stated after Gray's killing that:
"there was no excuse for the murder".
Fellow UDA member and former friend, Michael Stone claimed that Gray had told him he was a businessman rather than a loyalist, as loyalism did not pay the bills.
Unlike most brigadiers, he was not given a paramilitary funeral, complete with volleys of gunfire fired over the coffin. It was a private affair, attended by only 14 mourners. As a further sign of his unpopularity among loyalists, a street disco was held in east Belfast to celebrate his death.
Gray's effigy, with a curtain ring representing his trademark single gold earring, was thrown upon a bonfire. In lieu of murals dedicated to his memory, there was only graffiti scrawled on an east Belfast wall which read:
"Jim Gray RIP – Rest in Pink".
Gray's estate was frozen by the Assets Recovery Agency as part of an investigation into his criminality.
MacIntyre's Underworld Mad Dog
See: John Gregg (UDA) The man who shot Gerry Adam?
See: Michael Stone – Loyalist Hero or Psychopath?
Lister, David & Jordan, Hugh (2004). Mad Dog – The Rise and Fall of Johnny Adair and C Company, Edinburgh: Mainstream Publishing.
McDonald, Henry & Cusack, Jim (2004). UDA – Inside the Heart of Loyalist Terror. Dublin: Penguin Ireland.
Jean McConville – The Shameful & Unforgivable Murder of a Widow & Mother of Ten
April 24, 2018 Deaths in Northern Ireland, Deaths in the Troubles, Major events in The TroublesJean McConville, The Disappeared – Northern Ireland's Secret Victimsbelfastchildis
Jean McConville
The Shameful & Unforgivable Murder of a Widow & Mother of Ten
Jean McConville (née Murray; 7 May 1934 – December 1972) was a woman from Belfast, Northern Ireland, who was kidnapped and shot dead by the Provisional IRA and secretly buried in County Louth in the Republic of Ireland in 1972 after being accused by the IRA of passing information to British forces.
In 1999, the IRA acknowledged that it had killed McConville and eight others of the "Disappeared".
It claimed she had been passing information about republicans to the British Army in exchange for money and that a transmitter had been found in her apartment.
A report by the Police Ombudsman found no evidence for this or other rumours. Before the Troubles, the IRA had a policy of killing informers within its own ranks; however, from the start of the conflict the term informer was also used for civilians who were suspected of providing information on paramilitary organisations to the security forces. Other Irish republican and loyalist paramilitaries also carried out such killings.
As she was a widowed mother of ten, the McConville killing was particularly controversial. Her body was not found until 2003, and the crime has not been solved. The Police Ombudsman found that the Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) did not begin to investigate the disappearance properly until 1995.
Jean Murray was born on 7 May 1934 to a Protestant family in East Belfast but converted after marrying Arthur McConville, a Catholic former British Army soldier, with whom she had ten children. After being intimidated out of a Protestant district by loyalists in 1969, the McConville family moved to West Belfast's Divis Flats in the Lower Falls Road. Arthur died from cancer in January 1972.
At the time of her death, Jean McConville lived at 1A St Jude's Walk, which was part of the Divis Flats complex. This was an IRA stronghold, from which attacks were regularly launched against the British Army and RUC. Since the death of her husband, she had been raising their ten children, who were aged between six and twenty.
Their son Robbie was a member of the 'Official' IRA and was interned in Long Kesh at the time of her death; he would defect to the Irish National Liberation Army (INLA) in 1974.
In the months leading up to her death, tension and suspicion grew between McConville and her neighbours. One night shortly before her disappearance, she was allegedly attacked after leaving a bingo hall and warned to stop giving information to the British Army.
According to police records, on 29 November 1972 a British Army unit found a distressed woman wandering in the street. She told them her name was McConville and that she had been attacked and warned to stop informing.
One of McConville's children claimed she was kidnapped the night after this incident, but others gave the date of the kidnapping as 7 December.
On the night of her disappearance, four young women took McConville from her home at gunpoint, and she was driven to an unknown location. Dolours Price admitted that she was one of those involved in driving her across the border.
McConville was killed by a gunshot to the back of the head, there was no evidence of any other injuries to her body.
Her body was secretly buried across the border on Shellinghill Beach (also known as Templetown Beach) on the Cooley Peninsula in the north of County Louth, about 50 miles from her home. The place of her death is uncertain.
Although no group admitted responsibility for her disappearance, there were rumours that the IRA had killed her for being an informer. Another rumour is that she was killed because neighbours claimed they saw her helping a badly wounded British soldier outside her home; however, there is no record of such an incident.
McConville's children say they recall her helping a wounded British soldier some time before their father died in January 1972.
In a 2014 interview published in the Sunday Life, former veteran Irish republican Evelyn Gilroy claimed the person who had tended to the soldier was her [Gilroy's] sister.
The IRA did not admit involvement until after the signing of the Good Friday Agreement. It claimed she was killed because she was passing information about republicans to the British Army. Former IRA member Brendan Hughes claimed the IRA had searched her flat some time before her death and found a radio transmitter, which they confiscated.
He and other former republicans interrogated her and claimed she admitted the British Army was paying her for information about republicans. Hughes claims that, because of her circumstances, they let her go with a warning. However, he claims when the IRA found she had resumed working for the British Army, it decided to "execute" her.
Reluctant to kill a clearly desperate woman – not least because of the adverse publicity it would engender – the Brigade HQ Staff allowed McConville to live, albeit with a warning of fatal consequences should she be caught spying again. By December their patience was ended and after a short discussion over "banishment" versus "execution" her death was ordered through a majority vote. Among those supporting the latter option was the brigade OC or officer commanding,
Gerry Adams. However the manner of her killing was hotly debated. There were continuing fears that the acknowledged detention and killing by (P)IRA of a widowed mother of ten children (including a young political prisoner) would have a disastrous effect on support for the movement; that it would be exploited by Britain's well-oiled propaganda-machine, as well as Republican rivals in (O)IRA; and that the slaying could reduce moral among local Volunteers. In the end those favouring a "public execution" were out-voted by those supporting a secret death sentence and "disappearance", a solution which would have the added benefit of sowing confusion amongst their adversaries in the British intelligence groupings.
This was a practice that was already beginning to take root – albeit intermittently and with a great deal of controversy – in the conflict-cockpit of Belfast. In this decision it seems that Gerry Adams was again in the majority camp.
See: AN SIONNACH FIONN for full story
Usually the bodies of informers were left in public as a warning, but the IRA secretly buried McConville, apparently because she was a widowed mother-of-ten. The IRA had first done this two months earlier, when it killed and buried two IRA members who were found to be working undercover for the British Military Reaction Force (MRF).
After her disappearance, McConville's seven youngest children, including six-year-old twins, survived on their own in the flat, cared for by their 15-year-old sister Helen. After three weeks, the hungry family was visited by a stranger, who gave them Jean's purse, with 52 pence and her three rings in it.
On 16 January 1973, the story of the abduction appeared on the front page of the Belfast Telegraph, under the headline:
"Snatched mother missing a month"
The following day, the children were interviewed on the BBC television programme Scene Around Six. The children reported to the social services, and were immediately brought into local council care.
The family was forcibly split up by social services.Among the consequences of the killing, Jean's orphaned son Billy was sent to De La Salle Boys' Home, Rubane House, Kircubbin, County Down, notorious for child abuse; he testified in 2014 to the Northern Ireland Historical Institutional Abuse Inquiry, describing repeated sexual and physical abuse, and starvation, saying :
"Christians looking after young boys – maybe they were Christians, but to me they were devils disguised in that uniform."
Within two days of her kidnapping, one of her sons reported the incident to the Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) and the British Army. However, the Police Ombudsman did not find any trace of an investigation into the kidnapping during the 1970s or 1980s.
An officer told the Ombudsman that CID investigations in that area of Belfast at that time were "restricted to the most serious cases". On 2 January 1973, the RUC received two pieces of information stating:
"it is rumoured that Jean McConville had been abducted by the [IRA] because she is an informer"
In March 1973, information was received from the British Army, saying the kidnapping was an elaborate hoax and that McConville had left of her own free will. As a result, the RUC refused to accept that McConville was missing, preferring to believe an anonymous tip that she had absconded with a British soldier.
The first investigation into her kidnapping appears to have taken place in 1995, when a team of RUC detectives was established to review the cases of all those who were thought to have been kidnapped during the conflict.
In 1999, the IRA gave information on the whereabouts of her body. This prompted a prolonged search, co-ordinated by the Garda Síochána, the Irish police service, but no body was found. On the night of 26 August 2003, a storm washed away part of the embankment supporting the west side of Shellinghill Beach car park, near the site of previous searches. This exposed the body.
On 27 August, it was found by passersby while they were walking on Shellinghill Beach (also known as Templetown Beach) in County Louthat the eastern tip of the Cooley Peninsula. McConville was subsequently reburied beside her husband Arthur in Holy Trinity Graveyard in Lisburn.
Police Ombudsman's report
In April 2004 the inquest into McConville's death returned a verdict of unlawful killing.
In 2006 the Police Ombudsman for Northern Ireland, Nuala O'Loan, published a report about the police's investigation of the murder. It concluded that the RUC did not investigate the murder until 1995, when it carried out a minor investigation. It found no evidence that she had been an informer, but recommended the British Government go against its long-standing policy regarding informers and reveal whether she was one.
Journalist Ed Moloney called for the British Government to release war diaries relating to the Divis Flats area at the time. War diaries are usually released under the thirty-year rule, but those relating to Divis at the time of McConville's death are embargoed for almost ninety years.
The police have since apologised for its failure to investigate her abduction. In January 2005, Sinn Féin party chairman Mitchel McLaughlin claimed that the killing of McConville was not a crime, saying that she had been executed as a spy in a war situation.
This prompted Irish journalist Fintan O'Toole to write a rebuttal, arguing that the abduction and extrajudicial killing of McConville was clearly a:
"war crime by all accepted national and international standards"
The IRA has since issued a general apology, saying it :
"regrets the suffering of all the families whose loved ones were killed and buried by the IRA".
PSNI investigation and Boston College tapes
In August 2006, the Chief Constable of the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI), Sir Hugh Orde, stated that he was not hopeful anyone would be brought to justice over the murder, saying:
"[in] any case of that age, it is highly unlikely that a successful prosecution could be mounted."
Boston College had launched an oral history project on the Troubles in 2001. It recorded interviews with republicans and loyalists about their involvement in the conflict, on the understanding that the tapes would not be released until after their deaths.
Two of the republican interviewees, Brendan Hughes and Dolours Price, both now deceased, admitted they were involved in McConville's kidnapping. Both became diehard opponents of the Good Friday Agreement and Sinn Féin's support of it. They saw Sinn Féin president Gerry Adams as a traitor for negotiating the Agreement and persuading the IRA to end its campaign.
In 2010, after Hughes's death, some of his statements were published in the book Voices from the Grave. He claimed McConville had admitted being an informer, and that Adams ordered her disappearance.
In a 2010 newspaper article, Price also claimed McConville was an informer and that Adams ordered her disappearance, which has been strenuously denied by Ed Moloney. Price, who died in 2013, said she gave the interviews as revenge against Adams. Former republican prisoner Evelyn Gilroy, who lived near McConville, claimed Adams was an IRA commander and the only person who could have ordered the killing.
Adams has denied any role in the death of McConville. He said:
"the killing of Jean McConville and the secret burial of her body was wrong and a grievous injustice to her and her family"
In 2011, the PSNI began a legal bid to gain access to the tapes. Acting on a request from the PSNI, the United States Justice Department tried to force Boston College to hand them over. Boston College had promised those interviewed that the tapes would not be released until after their deaths, and other interviewees said they feared retribution if the tapes were released. Following a lengthy court battle, the PSNI was given transcripts of interviews by Hughes and Price.
2014 arrests
In March and April 2014, the PSNI arrested a number of people over the kidnapping and killing of Jean McConville. Ivor Bell, former IRA Chief of Staff, was arrested in March 2014. Shortly afterwards, he was charged with aiding and abetting in her murder.
In April, the PSNI arrested three people who were teenagers at the time of the kidnapping: a 56-year-old man and two women, aged 57 and 60. All were released without charge.
Following Bell's arrest in March, there was media speculation that police would want to question Gerry Adams due to the claims made by Hughes and Price. Adams maintained he was not involved, but had his solicitor contact the PSNI to find whether they wanted to question him.
On 30 April, after being contacted by the PSNI, Adams voluntarily arranged to be interviewed at Antrim PSNI Station. He was arrested and questioned for four days before being released without charge. A file was sent to the Public Prosecution Service (PPS) to decide whether further action should be taken, but there was "insufficient evidence" to charge him.
The arrest took place during an election campaign. Sinn Féin claimed that the timing of the arrest was politically motivated; an attempt to harm the party's chances in the upcoming elections. Alex Maskey said it was evidence of a "political agenda […] a negative agenda" by elements of the PSNI.
Jean McConville's family had campaigned for the arrest of Adams over the murder. Her son Michael said:
"Me and the rest of my brothers and sisters are just glad to see the PSNI doing their job. We didn't think it would ever take place [Mr Adams' arrest], but we are quite glad that it is taking place."
In a later interview on the Today programme on BBC Radio 4, he stated that he knew the names of those who had abducted and killed his mother, but that:
"I wouldn't tell the police [PSNI]. If I told the police now a thing, me or one of my family members or one of my children would get shot by those [IRA] people. It's terrible that we know those people and we can't bring them to justice"
Anthony Mc Intyre and the Boston Tapes
See: The Disappeared – Northern Ireland's Secret Victims
Torrens Knight – Natural Born Killer
March 24, 2018 Deaths in the Troubles, Major events in The TroublesCastlerock Killings, Nuala O'Loan, Rising Sun bar, Shankill Bombing, The Greysteel Shootings, Torrens Knight, trick or treat killings, UDA Flag, uff, UFF Flagbelfastchildis
Torrens Knight
– Natural Born Killer –
Torrens Knight (born 4 August 1969) is a Northern Ireland loyalist, who belonged to the North Antrim and Londonderry Brigade of the Ulster Defence Association (UDA).
UDA Flag
In 1993 he took part in the Greysteel massacre (in which eight civilians were shot dead) and the Castlerock killings (in which three civilians and a Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA) member were killed). After being convicted—along with three others—for the killings, he served seven years in the Maze Prison before his release in 2000 under the terms of the Belfast Agreement.
Knight spent his formative years living at his grandmother's farmhouse in the rural area of Aghadowey after the split of his parent's marriage. In adulthood he developed an addiction to poker gambling machines which resulted in his exposure of stealing money from his grandmother to fund his habit.
As a result of this he was asked to leave the home and subsequently moved to the mostly Protestant town of Portstewart. Living with a loyalist, he started drinking alcohol and involving himself with criminality.
Paramilitary Activity
His initial starting point within loyalism was selling a magazine for a loyalist prisoners association. He progressed to the ranks of the UDA and carried out acts like robberies and punishment beatings. Knight was part of a four-man UDA group sent to conduct an attack in revenge for the Shankill Road bombing.
Their target was the Rising Sun bar in Greysteel, where Knight, Stephen Irwin, Jeffrey Deeney and Brian McNeill shot eight dead (six Catholics and two Protestants). After the leading gunman, Irwin shouted "Trick or treat", he and Deeney raked the bar with gunfire, while Knight, armed with a shotgun, stood at the door. 19 other people were injured. McNeill was the driver of one of the cars used after the shootings.
UFF Flag
The attack was claimed by the "Ulster Freedom Fighters", a covername used by the UDA.
Knight was given eight life sentences for his part in the killings and a further four more for the killing of an IRA member and three Catholic civilians in Castlerock, County Londonderry. He served seven years in the Maze Prison before paramilitary prisoners were granted a general release under the Good Friday Agreement in 2000.
Allegations of being an informant
According to David McKittrick, there had been rumours that Knight had been a police informer. Suspicions have been voiced by John Dallat, a member of the nationalist Social Democratic and Labour Party (SDLP).
Dallat, who said he was in touch with police about Knight before the attacks in Greysteel and Castlerock, claimed they might have been prevented since it was known Knight was an extremist.
In 2000 Knight attracted the attention of staff at a bank where he was withdrawing large amounts of money from an account into which £50,000 a year was being paid. The bank's concern was that Knight was involved in money laundering, but, when police were contacted, an assurance was given that everything was in order.
The money was said to be from a Scottish engineering firm, but the account was quickly closed down.
Nuala O'Loan
Police ombudsman Nuala O'Loan investigated Dallat's claim that police had prior information about Greysteel, stating that there was no evidence this was the case. She also stated that Knight's conviction and sentence led her to believe that he was not being protected by police, but added that it was beyond her remit to investigate whether or not he was a paid informer.
Alleged membership of Apprentice Boys
In 2008 Sinn Féin councillor Billy Leonard claimed that Knight was a member of the Kilrea branch of the Apprentice Boys. It was claimed that Knight took part in a parade in Kilrea and laid a wreath at the cenotaph in the village.
The Kilrea branch of the Apprentice Boys denied this as did Knight himself. A spokesman stated that Knight wasn't a member and that they will demand an apology and explanation from Sinn Féin.
Knight also stated that John Dallat and Billy Leonard are taking part in a 'hate campaign' against him and challenged the nationalist politicians 'to get off his back'
2009 conviction
In October 2009 Knight was found guilty of assaulting two sisters in a bar in Coleraine. As a result, his early release licence was suspended and he was returned to jail.
He was later sentenced to four months jail for the assault. The judge said:
"The injuries sustained were consistent with a vicious attack on the two women and of particular concern in this case is that you kicked Ms Nicholl while she was on the ground, prone and unable to defend herself…. People who do that can expect no mercy or sympathy from these courts.
You acted as a bully when you approached these sisters. You lost control and lashed out".
After Knight was returned to prison in 2009 it was revealed that Trevor Collins, a member of Jim Allister's Traditional Unionist Voice political party from Garvagh, was collecting signatures campaigning for his release from prison. The TUV said it would not be taking action against Collins for instigating the petition.
Knight was released on 6 August 2010
See: The Greysteel Shootings
See: Castlerock Killings
See: Shankill Bombing
Confessions of serial killer Torrens Knight
Recording reveals loyalist's life of drugs, crimes and sectarian murder
Notorious 'trick or treat' killer Torrens Knight has spoken frankly about his life of crime, drug abuse and sectarian murder.
The once defiant, gloating loyalist gunman says his life "spiralled out of control" when he joined the UFF and he knew the Greysteel massacre was wrong.
But the born-again Christian, 46, has also admitted that he relished being in the UDA/UFF, saying: "I was on a road to destruction but I liked it because it fuelled my anger.
"I looked upon the UDA as my family. It was sad in a way but that's how I looked at the UDA."
Co Londonderry man Knight – the most infamous of the Greysteel killers – has spoken candidly of his life as a terrorist in a 33 minute audio testimony made for a Christian group and broadcast online on the same site that published the testimony of Ballymena 'glued lips' killer Adrian Hayes.
Choking with emotion on occasions, Knight tells how he descended from being a poker machine addict who took cash from granny's purse, to becoming a UDA robber and enforcer before joining a UFF murder squad.
Aged 24 he led the UFF gang that shouted "trick or treat" before raking the Rising Sun bar with machine gun fire in Halloween 1993.
A 19-year-old woman and an 81-year-old man were among the eight people mercilessly killed in the sectarian slaughter at the village pub on Saturday, October 30.
Following his arrest TV pictures of an unrepentant Knight screaming abuse and defiance outside Limavady courthouse were beamed around the world.
Bible-basher Knight now says that his snarling, hardman stance was all a front.
He planned to go on the run but says he knew in his heart the atrocity in the pub was wrong and allowed police to arrest him.
Speaking at a Gospel meeting, Knight began by telling fellow Christians of his early days, living with his God-fearing granny on a farm in Aghadowey when his parents' marriage broke up.
Knight's life began to go wrong when he became addicted to poker machines at a local pub. He took cash from a purse where his granny kept money for church missions and his gran and furious dad told him to pack his bags.
He moved to Portstewart with a pal from a hardline loyalist background who had been told to leave his family home when he started going out with a Catholic girl.
"I went to Portstewart to live. I started drinking and going out. I lost the influence and fear of my father.
"One thing led to another. I had anger issues. I would say I had a chip on my shoulder and I got involved in criminality.
"A few years later I got involved in an organisation. I started off just going round the doors selling magazines for the LPA (Loyalist Prisoners Association) and lifting money. I enjoyed it.
"Then I progressed. I moved up into the UDA, going round the doors wasn't enough. I started doing robberies and beatings, things like that. But that still wasn't enough. I wanted to go further.
"I progressed to the UFF, which was really the murder teams of the loyalist paramilitaries. My life just spiralled out of control.
"I joined the organisation to fight against the IRA who I saw as the enemy and it just progressed and progressed. It was a scary time.
"I got involved in shooting and ended up killing not only IRA men but also killing innocent people. That was a thing I never ever thought I would do. I never planned it.
Aftermath: RUC officers outside the Rising Sun bar where Torrens Knight murdered eight innocent people on Halloween night 1993.
"But that's just sin. Once you go down the road of sin, it sucks you in, it can just take over.
"It was just like I was going down a road of destruction. And I liked it because it fuelled my anger," said the man who was also jailed for the killings of four men in Castlerock in 1993.
He said he looked on the UDA as his family.
"I was part of something. I felt special. I had boys who would watch my back and I would do the same for them."
Knight talks about "eyeing up" a Provo for assassination for a few days prior to the Greysteel murders but he now thanks God that the man did not turn up.
"Then the Shankill bomb happened and orders came down the line something big was going down, that we were to cancel what we were doing. And I was asked to take charge of the team that were going to carry this out.
"The place that was picked was the Rising Sun bar in Greysteel. I didn't question it."
He said he would have done anything he was asked to do by UDA leaders at that point.
"At that time we were so, in a way brainwashed, that's being truthful. We believed what we were doing was right."
After the pub massacre Knight considered going on the run but instead effectively gave himself up.
"I had a gut feeling when the 'job' was carried out that something wasn't right.
"I was actually ready to go on the run and go into hiding but there was something in here [he thumps on his heart a number of times] that didn't sit right with me.
"I says 'I'll man up' because I knew they [police] were looking for me. A pile of my mates had been lifted. I saw the police in Macosquin and I just stood and they took me and another chap away."
Knight said he had been interrogated by CID at Castlereagh Holding Centre previously and regarded it just as a game which he enjoyed. He never thought the cops would 'get under his skin' but this time was different.
He added: "I tried to put on this hard exterior, I tried to justify it but deep down I knew it wasn't right, these innocent people, it wasn't right.
"And I think that's what helped break me too because I knew it wasn't right."
He talks about spending time in the Maze jail on remand after "wrecking the Crum (Crumlin Road Gaol)" and finding drugs in easy supply.
"It was a scary place. It was a mad place. It was full of mad men. I thank God he brought me through it all."
Knight says he "dabbled" in drugs prior to going into the Maze but cannabis became a way of life in jail.
"Whenever we went into prison unfortunately drugs were readily available and that's the way we put in our days in, smoking weed and getting stoned."
The multiple killer, who was given 12 life sentences, said: "I suppose it [the drugs] were a way of us dealing with what we were going through because it was traumatic, our lives were just turned upside down. It was a form of escapism."
In his testimony Knight, who is understood to work for a joinery firm on the North Coast, tells how he found God while serving time in prison.
He says his partner Carolyn also came to the Lord after seeing how he had changed. At times he chokes with emotion as he talks about his life and the role of God in his life. The killer admits that on occasions he has backslid, saying "he took the hand off the plough".
After being given early release under the Good Friday Agreement terms he was later returned to jail for assaulting two women and disorderly behaviour in a Coleraine bar. But he says he now thanks God he was jailed for a second time.
Choking up, he says: "I had drifted away from God and that's why I got into the mess that I did. I was one of those men who the Bible talks about, a man who had taken his hand off the plough.
"Since then I cry a lot. God touched me in a special way. God has had to break me a few times but he hasn't broke me to destroy, he has broke me to build me up again, to teach me."
The audio of Torrens Knight's full testimony was recently uploaded to the website of Set Free Prisons Bangor.
See Belfast Telegraph for full story
Castlerock Killings – 25th March 1993
March 12, 2018 Deaths in the Troubles, Major events in The Troubles27th March, Castlerock, Castlerock Killings, Damian Walsh,, Gerard Dalrymple, James Kelly,, James McKenna, Kingsmill massacre, Noel O'Kane,, Patsy Groogan, Torrens Knightbelfastchildis
Castlerock Killings
The Castlerock killings took place on 25 March 1993 in the village of Castlerock, County Londonderry, Northern Ireland. Members of the Ulster Defence Association (UDA), a loyalist paramilitary group, shot dead three civilians and a Provisional Irish Republican Army volunteer as they arrived for work. Another was wounded. The men were all Catholics.
The five men were builders and had been renovating houses in the Gortree Park housing estate for some months. As they arrived in their van at Gortree Park, at least two gunmen jumped out of another van and opened fire.
The views and opinions expressed in this post/documentaries are soley intended to educate and provide background information to those interested in the Troubles of Northern Ireland. They in no way reflect my own opinions and I take no responsibility for any inaccuracies or factual errors.
Those killed were James McKenna (52), Gerard Dalrymple (58), Noel O'Kane (20) and Provisional IRA volunteer James Kelly (25).
James Kelly, (25)
Status: Irish Republican Army (IRA),
Shot during gun attack on van, as he arrived at his workplace, renovating houses, Gortree Park, Castlerock, County Derry.
James McKenna, (52)
Gerard Dalrymple, (58)
Noel O'Kane, (20)
The gunmen drove off toward Castlerock before doing a U-turn and passing their victims again. The van used by the gunmen was found burnt-out two miles from the attack.
Later in the day, the UDA shot dead a Catholic civilian Damian Walsh and wounded another at Dairy Farm Shopping Centre in Belfast.
Damian Walsh, (17)
Shot at his workplace, Dairy Farm Shopping Centre, Twinbrook, Belfast.
See: 25th March – Deaths & Events in Northern Ireland Troubles
The UDA claimed responsibility for the attack using the covername "Ulster Freedom Fighters" (UFF) and said the men were republicans.
Sinn Féin councillor Patsy Groogan said the men were regularly stopped and harassed by the security forces and that he had:
"no doubt that this behaviour played a part in targeting these men for assassination".
The weapons were later used by the same gang in carrying out the Halloween Greysteel massacre at the Rising Sun pub on 31 October 1993. It has been claimed that one of the gang was a double agent and protected by RUC Special Branch.
Torrens Knight received eight life sentences for the Greysteel massacre, together with four more for the Castlerock killings. He served seven years in the Maze Prison before paramilitary prisoners were granted a general release under the Belfast Agreement.
See: The Kingsmill Massacre – 5 January 1976
Victor Arbuckle – First of over 300 brave RUC Officers Killed during the Troubles.
February 5, 2018 Deaths in the Troubles, ira, Major events in The TroublesBattle of Bogside, first ruc officer killed, first victim of the troubles, ruc, The "B-Specials" or "B Men', Victor Arbucklebelfastchildis
Victor Arbuckle
RUC Officer Killed
Victor Arbuckle (aged 29), a member of the Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC), was shot dead by Loyalists during street disturbances on the Shankill Road in Belfast.
Two Protestant civilians were shot dead by the British Army during rioting.
They were:
Goerge Dickie, (25)
Killed by: British Army (BA)
Shot during street disturbances, at the corner of Shankill Road and Downing Street, Belfast
Herbert Hawe, (32)
Shot during street disturbances, Hopeton Street, Shankill, Belfast.
First deaths in Trouble
The first deaths of the Troubles occurred in July 1969. Francis McCloskey, a 67-year-old Catholic civilian had been found unconscious on 13 July near the Dungiven Orange Hall following a police baton charge against a crowd who had been throwing stones at the hall.
Witnesses later said they had seen police batoning a figure in the doorway where McCloskey was found, although police claimed that he had been unconscious before the baton charge and may have been hit with a stone. He was taken to hospital and died the following day.
On 11 October 1969, Constable Victor Arbuckle was shot dead by loyalists on Belfast's Shankill Road during serious rioting in protest at the recommendations of the Hunt Report. Arbuckle was the first police fatality of the Troubles.
In August 1970, two young constables, Donaldson and Millar, died when an abandoned car they were examining near the strongly republican town of Crossmaglen exploded. They became the first security forces victims of the Provisional Irish Republican Army campaign.
This campaign involved the targeting of police officers, and continued until the final ceasefire in 1997, as the peace process gained momentum.
The last RUC officer killed, Constable Francis O'Reilly (a Catholic), was also killed by loyalists, in a September 1998 bombing during the Drumcree conflict.
Francis O'Reilly (30) Catholic
Killed by: Red Hand Defenders (RHD)
Died one month after being injured by blast bomb, thrown during street disturbances, Charles Street, Portadown, County Armagh.
Injured on 5 September 1998.
See 11th Oct – Deaths & Events in Northern Ireland Troubles
Badge of the Royal Ulster Constabulary
The Royal Ulster Constabulary was the police force in Northern Ireland from 1922 to 2001. Following the awarding of the George Cross in 2000, its formal title became the Royal Ulster Constabulary, GC. It was founded on 1 June 1922 as a successor to the Royal Irish Constabulary (RIC).
At its peak the force had around 8,500 officers with a further 4,500 who were members of the RUC Reserve.
During the Troubles, 319 members of the RUC were killed and almost 9,000 injured in paramilitary assassinations or attacks, mostly by the Provisional IRA, which made the RUC, by 1983, the most dangerous police force in the world in which to serve.
In the same period, the RUC killed 55 people, 28 of whom were civilians.
The RUC was renamed and reformed as the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) in 2001 under the Police (Northern Ireland) Act 2000.
The RUC has been accused by republicans and Irish nationalists of one-sided policing and discrimination, as well as collusion with loyalist paramilitaries. Conversely, it was praised as one of the most professional policing operations in the world by British security forces.
The allegations regarding collusion prompted several inquiries, the most recent of which was published by Police Ombudsman Nuala O'Loan. The report identified police, CID and Special Branch collusion with loyalist terrorists under 31 separate headings, in her report on the murder of Raymond McCord and other matters, but no member of the RUC has been charged or convicted of any criminal acts as a result of these inquiries. Ombudsman Dame Nuala O'Loan stated in her conclusions that there was no reason to believe the findings of the investigation were isolated incidents.
See here for more details on the RUC
See here for RUC deaths in the Troubles :
1969 Northern Ireland riots
During 12–17 August 1969, intense political and sectarian rioting took place in Northern Ireland. There had been sporadic violence throughout the year arising from the civil rights campaign, which was demanding an end to discrimination against Irish Catholics. Civil rights marches were repeatedly attacked by both Ulster Protestant loyalists and by the Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC), a unionist and largely Protestant police force.
The disorder led to the Battle of the Bogside in Londonderry, a three-day riot in the Bogside district between the RUC and the nationalist/Catholic residents. In support of the Bogsiders, nationalists and Catholics launched protests elsewhere in Northern Ireland. Some of these led to attacks by loyalists working alongside the police. The most bloody rioting was in Belfast, where seven people were killed and hundreds more wounded. Scores of houses, most of them owned by Catholics, as well as businesses and factories were burned out. In addition, thousands of mostly Catholic families were driven from their homes. In certain areas, the RUC helped the loyalists and failed to protect Catholic areas. Events in Belfast have been viewed by some as a pogrom against the Catholic and nationalist minority.[1][2]
The British Army was deployed to restore order and state control, and peace lines began to be built to separate the two sides. The events of August 1969 are widely seen as the beginning of the thirty-year conflict known as the Troubles.
See here for history of Northern Ireland Troubles
See The "B-Specials" or "B Men'
29th January – Deaths & Events in Northern Ireland Troubles
January 29, 2018 Deaths in Northern Ireland, Deaths in the Troubles, Major events in The Troublesdeaths in the northern ireland troubles, Deaths in the Troubles, James Trainor,, John McKeague, Joseph McAlinden,, Martin Crossen, Matilda Withrington,, Robert McCullough, William Baggleybelfastchildis
29th January
Two Catholic civilians were killed in separate attacks in Belfast by Loyalist paramilitaries.
Saturday 29 January 1977
The Irish Republican Army (IRA) explode seven bombs in a series of attacks in the West End of London.
John McKeague, who had been a prominent Loyalist activist, was shot dead by the Irish National Liberation Army (INLA) in his shop, Albertbridge Road, Belfast.
See below for more details on John McKeague
The New Ulster Political Research Group (NUPRG), an organisation associated with the views of the Ulster Defense Association (UDA) and whose chairman was then John McMichael, published a document called Common Sense.
The document proposed a constitutional conference, a devolved assembly and a coalition government.
See here for more details on John McMichael
The 'Belfast Telegraph' newspaper published the results of an opinion poll of people in Northern Ireland. One result showed that 68 per cent of Protestants and 62 per cent of Catholics felt that the Anglo-Irish Agreement (AIA) had made no difference to the political situation in Northern Ireland.
US Visa Given to Adams
Bill Clinton, then President of the United States of America (USA), ordered that Gerry Adams, then President of Sinn Féin (SF), should be given a 'limited duration' visa to enter the USA to address a peace conference. [The decision was supported by the National Security Council and Irish-American Senators but was taken against the advice of the State Department and the British government.]
An Irish Republican Army (IRA) incendiary device was defused in London.
The Social Democratic and Labour Party (SDLP), the Ulster Democratic Party (UDP) and the Progressive Unionist Party (PUP), held their first meeting under the 'twin-track' negotiations.
Tony Blair, then British Prime Minister, announced a new inquiry into the events surrounding 'Bloody Sunday' in Derry on 30 January 1972. Relatives announced that they could now consider Lord Widgery's report to be "dead."
[The new inquiry was to be known as the Saville Inquiry.]
Six members of one family escaped injury after a pipe-bomb was left in their refuse bin. The device was uncovered just after midnight at the rear of a house in a predominantly Nationalist estate in Greencastle. The attack was carried out by Loyalist paramilitaries.
A Catholic couple escaped injury when a pipe-bomb was thrown through the living room window of their home in Coleraine, County Derry, shortly before midnight.
Just over an hour earlier the home of a Catholic mother-of-two was targeted in the Harpurs Hill area of Coleraine.
The woman was in her kitchen when a pipe-bomb was thrown through the window. It landed on the floor but failed to explode. The Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) said that both attacks were sectarian. The attacks were carried out by Loyalist paramilitaries.
[There was a petrol-bomb attack on flats in Ormeau Road, south Belfast, at approximately 9.50pm (2150GMT). The device caused scorch damage to the building but there were no injuries. It was not clear if the attack was sectarian.]
A Social Democratic and Labour Party (SDLP) delegation travelled to Downing Street, London, for a meeting with Tony Blair, then British Prime Minister. The meeting discussed the controversy over the investigation of the Omagh bombing and also reforms to the criminal justice system in Northern Ireland.
There were media reports that members of the security forces would soon lose the right not to have to give evidence at inquests. British Army soldiers and police officers are currently exempt from being compelled to attend inquests when they have been involved in fatal shootings. The change was expected to be introduced by the British government sometime in February 2002.
Solectron, an American company with a factory in Carrickfergus, County Antrim, announced that it was entering a 90-day consultation with its workforce over the future of the plant. It was reported that 200 jobs would be lost. The job losses are a direct result of the problems facing the telecommunications company Nortel – which have resulted in the loss of more than 1,000 jobs in Northern Ireland
7 People lost their lives on the 29th January between 19723 – 1982
James Trainor (22)
Status: Civilian (Civ)
Killed by: non-specific Loyalist group (LOY)
Shot at his workplace, petrol filling station, Kennedy Way, Andersonstown, Belfast.
Matilda Withrington (79)
Killed by: Royal Air Force (RAF)
Shot while in her home during Irish Republican Army (IRA) sniper attack on Royal Air Force (RAF) bus, Shimna Parade, Newcastle, County Down.
RAF members returned fire.
William Baggley (43)
Status: Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC)
Shot while on Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) foot patrol, Dungiven Road, Derry.
Robert McCullough (17)
Killed by: Ulster Defence Association (UDA)
Shot at his workplace, United Paper Merchants, Downshire Place, off Great Victoria Street, Belfast.
Joseph McAlinden (44)
Shot at his home, Upper Cavehill Road, Belfast.
Martin Crossen (26)
Shot during gun and bomb attack on Brady's off licence shop, Antrim Road, Belfast.
John McKeague (51)
Status: Civilian Political Activist (CivPA)
Killed by: Irish National Liberation Army (INLA)
Former Loyalist activist. Shot at his shop, Albertbridge Road, Belfast.
See here for more details on John McKeague
John McKeague – Red Hand Commando – Life & Death
January 29, 2018 Deaths in Northern Ireland, Deaths in the Troubles, Major events in The TroublesIsabella McKeague, John McKeague, kincora, kincora boys home, Red Hand Commandobelfastchildis
John Dunlop McKeague
John Dunlop McKeague (1930 – 29 January 1982) was a prominent Ulster loyalist and one of the founding members of the paramilitary group the Red Hand Commando in 1970. Authors on the Troubles in Northern Ireland have accused McKeague of involvement in the Kincora Boys' Home scandal but he was never convicted.
He was shot dead by the Irish National Liberation Army (INLA) in Belfast in January 1982
John McKeague
McKeague in a BBC interview in 1976
Bushmills, County Antrim
Albertbridge Road, Belfast
Gunshot wounds
Loyalist Song Book
Leader of the Red Hand Commando
Winston Churchill Rea
Protestant Unionist Party
Ulster Independence Association
Ulster Protestant Volunteers
Shankill Defence Association
Red Hand Commando
Criminal charge
Incitement to hatred
Criminal penalty
Acquitted of both charges
McKeague and Ian Paisley
A native of Bushmills, County Antrim, McKeague, who long had a reutation for anti-Catholicism, became a member of Ian Paisley's Free Presbyterian Church in 1966. McKeague and his mother moved to east Belfast in 1968, where he became a regular at Paisley's own Martyrs' Memorial Church on the Ravenhill Road and joined the Willowfield branch of the Ulster Protestant Volunteers.
Before moving to Belfast he had already been questioned in relation to a sexual assault on two young boys. The charges were dropped after the intervention of some friends who held prominent positions in Northern Irish society.
McKeague split from Paisley in late 1969 under uncertain circumstances. Rumours that a young man with whom McKeague was living was his boyfriend had been rife but McKeague did not discuss the details. He stated only that he had been summoned to a meeting by Paisley where he was told he was an "embarrassment" and would have to leave the Free Presbyterian Church.
While giving evidence to Lord Justice Scarman as part of his tribunal investigating the 1969 Northern Ireland riots Paisley stated that he and other Ulster Constitution Defence Committee leaders had agreed to expel McKeague from the UPV in April 1969 after he breached Rule 15 of the group's code, which banned members from supporting
"Subversive or Lawless Activities".
Whatever the circumstances, the two became bitter enemies, with McKeague frequently criticising Paisley in print.
Early loyalist involvement
McKeague's relationship with William McGrath's Tara, a partially clandestine organisation that sought to drive Roman Catholicism out of all of Ireland and re-establish an earlier Celtic Christianity which it claimed had existed on the island centuries earlier, has been the subject of some disagreement.
According to Tim Pat Coogan McKeague was a founder-member of Tara of 1966 although he does not eleaborate on the details. Chris Moore, in his investigation into the Kincora scandal, insists that McKeague was never a member of Tara but that he and McGrath had met to discuss trading weapons between their two groups and that following these meetings McKeague had become a regular visitor to Kincora, where he was involved in several rapes of underage boys living at the home.
Although making no comment on his membership or otherwise of the group Jim Cusack and Henry McDonald insist that McKeague shared the far right conspiratorial views advanced by McGrath and UPV leader Noel Doherty.
Martin Dillon also makes no comment on McKeague and Tara but insists that he was one of a number of shadowy figures, along with McGrath, who played a leading role in the formation of the Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF) in 1966 and in helping to direct its strategy for the rest of the 1960s.
In late 1969 Thomas McDowell, a member of the Free Presbyterian Church who held dual membership of the UPV and UVF, was killed after a bungled attempt to blow up the power station at Ballyshannon led to him being electrocuted, suffering severe burns.
Investigations by the Garda Síochána, who found UVF insignia on McDowell's coat, led them to question his associate Samuel Stevenson who named McKeague as a central figure in a series of UVF explosions that had been carried out at the time, many involving UPV members.
The case went north, where the previous explosions had taken place, and on 16 February 1970 the trial opened. McKeague, along with William Owens (McKeague's 19-year-old flatmate), Derek Elwood, Trevor Gracey and Francis Mallon, were charged with causing an earlier explosion at Templepatrick.
The case collapsed after serious doubt was cast on the character of Stevenson, whose evidence was the main basis of the prosecution's case
In 1968 McKeague became a regular figure amongst groups of locals who every night congregated in large groups in the Woodvale area close to Ardoyne after a series of incidents between loyalists and republicans during which flags from both sides had been forcibly removed.
Having split from the UPV due to its perceived inaction in May 1969, McKeague addressed a meeting of loyalists in Tennent Street Hall at which he called for organisation against Catholic rioters. From this meeting he founded the Shankill Defence Association(SDA), with the proclaimed intention to defend the Shankill Road from Catholic rioters.
However, in contrast to similar Protestant vigilante groups such as the Woodvale Defence Association which were for the most part reactive, the SDA played a leading role in fomenting trouble during the Northern Ireland riots of August 1969, leading attacks on Catholic homes in the Falls Road and Crumlin Road.
He became a notorious figure locally, usually prominent in the rioting, carrying a stick and wearing a helmet.
The violence of the SDA was accompanied by equally violent rhetoric from McKeague as he boasted that the group possessed "hundreds of guns" and vowed that
"We will see the battle through to the end".
His militant stance won him the public support of Ronald Bunting who, like McKeague had earlier been associated with Paisley but had since broken from him.
In November 1969, McKeague was cleared of a charge of conspiracy to cause explosions. He was however sentenced to three months imprisonment for unlawful assembly.
McKeague's absence on remand for the initial charges saw his stock fall on the Shankill, where he was already mistrusted due to being from east Belfast and where his reputation had been further blackened by supporters of his former friend Ian Paisley.
Leaving the Shankill he attempted to set up a group similar to the SDA on the Donegall Roadbut was declared persona non grata by the head of an existing local Defence Committee, who was a loyal Paisleyite. This, combined with a rumour that McKeague was a "fruit", saw him abandon all initiatives in the west and south of the city and concentrate on east Belfast.
The SDA continued in his absence until 1971 when it merged with other like-minded vigilante groups to form the Ulster Defence Association (UDA).
McKeague was a candidate for the Protestant Unionist Party, the forerunner of the Democratic Unionist Party, in a Belfast Corporation by-election for the Victoria ward in the east of the city in 1969 but was not elected. He then stood as an Independent Unionist in Belfast North in the 1970 general election, but polled only 0.75% of the vote. He also began producing Loyalist News.
Much of the content of the magazine was of a low-brow nature, containing jokes and cartoons in which Catholics were portrayed as lazy, dirty, stupid and alcoholic or, in the case of women, highly promiscuous.
In 1971 he was tried for incitement to hatred after publishing the controversial Loyalist Song Book. The first man to be tried under the Incitement to Hatred Act, McKeague's book included the line
"you've never seen a better Taig than with a bullet in his head".
After the jury disagreed at his trial a retrial was ordered at which he and a co-defendant were acquitted. Martin Dillon argues that it was around this time that RUC Special Branch first recruited him as an agent, allegedly using information they had obtained about his paedophile activities to force him to agree. He was handed over to the Intelligence Corps by Special Branch the following year.
Loyalist paramilitarism
John McKeague and mother
His mother, Isabella McKeague, was burned alive on 9 May 1971 when the UDA petrol-bombed the family shop in Albertbridge Road, Belfast. Reporting on her death in Loyalist News, John McKeague claimed she had been….
"murdered by the enemies of Ulster",
….a common term for republicans.
In fact, the UDA had tired of McKeague both for his loose cannon attitude in launching attacks and starting riots without consulting their leadership and due to his promiscuous homosexuality with teenage partners. According to Ed Moloney a dispute over money had also been central to the schism between McKeague and the UDA.
McKeague broke fully from the UDA and established the Red Hand Commando in the middle of 1972, recruiting a number of young men primarily in east Belfast and North Down.
McKeague had already been involved in organising the "Tartan gangs", groups of loyalist youths who were involved in rioting and general disorder, and used these as the basis of his new group.
Following various attacks by his paramilitary organisation, in February 1973 he became one of the first loyalist internees and was later imprisoned for three years on an armed robbery charge (a conviction he disputed). He started two hunger strikes in protest against the Special Powers Act and prison conditions while in jail.
In his absence he lost control of the Red Hand Commando, which became an integral part of the UVF. UVF leader Gusty Spence however contended that he had secured McKeague's agreement that the running of the Red Hand Commando should be taken over by the UVF not long after McKeague established the movement.
According to British military intelligence and police files McKeague was believed to have been behind the sadistic murder of a ten-year-old boy, Brian McDermott, in South Belfast in September 1973.
The killing, which involved dismemberment and the burning of the body in the Ormeau Park, was so gruesome that the local press speculated that it might have been carried out as part of a Satanic ritual. On 3 October 1975, Alice McGuinness, a Catholic civilian, was injured in an IRA bomb attack on McKeague's hardware shop on the Albertbridge Road. She died three days later. McKeague's sister was severely injured in the same bombing.
Ulster Nationalism
McKeague became a leading figure in the Ulster Loyalist Central Coordinating Committee (ULCCC), and in 1976 publicly endorsed Ulster nationalism in his capacity as an ULCCC spokesman. The aim of the group, which McKeague chaired, was to co-ordinate loyalist paramilitaries with the aim of founding a unified "Ulster army" although this premise did not prevent a loyalist feud between the UDA and UVF continuing following its foundation.
With John McClure, McKeague contacted Irish republicans Ruairí Ó Brádaigh and Joe Cahill to initiate talks in an attempt to find a common platform for an independent Northern Ireland. This collapsed after Conor Cruise O'Brien discovered and revealed the activity.
McKeague met with Gerry Adams briefly to discuss the independence option but the meetings were unproductive and reportedly convinced Adams that such clandestine discussions with loyalist paramilitaries were a waste of time. The contact between McKeague and his allies and the republicans, which was not endorsed by the wider ULCCC, saw the group fall apart as both the UDA and Down Orange Welfare resigned from the co-ordinating body when it came to light.
McKeague was subsequently a leading figure in the Ulster Independence Association, a group active from 1979 in support of an independent Northern Ireland. McKeague served as deputy to George Allport's leadership of the group.
In January 1982 McKeague was interviewed by detectives investigating Kincora about his involvement in the sexual abuse. Fearful of returning to prison, McKeague told friends that he was prepared to name others involved in the paedophile ring to avoid a sentence.
However on 29 January 1982, McKeague was shot dead in his shop on the Albertbridge Road, East Belfast, reportedly by the INLA.
It has been argued that following McKeague's threats to go public about all of those involved in Kincora his killing had been ordered by the Intelligence Corps, as many of those who could have named were also agents (often more effective than McKeague, who by that time was highly peripheral in paramilitary circles). To support this suggestion it has been stated by Jack Holland and Henry McDonald that of the two gunmen who shot McKeague one was a known Special Branch agent and the other was rumoured to have military intelligence links.
See 29th January – Deaths & Events in Northern Ireland Troubles
Enemy of the State – John Anthony Downey
September 14, 2017 Deaths in the Troubles, Major events in The TroublesHyde Park Bombing, John Anthony Downey, John Anthony Downey hyde parkbelfastchildis
John Anthony Downey
John Anthony Downey from County Donegal was arrested at Gatwick Airport on 19 May 2013 and appeared at Westminster Magistrates' Court on 22 May 2013 charged with the murder of four Household Cavalry members who were killed in the July 1982 Hyde Park bombing. Downey denied all charges.
John Downey's case was sent to the Old Bailey for a bail hearing on 24 May 2013 and a preliminary hearing on 5 June 2013. Proceedings against Downey were dropped, and he was freed on 25 February 2014.
Call for immediate release
John Downey's arrest provoked a strong reaction from Sinn Féin who called for his immediate release. Sinn Féin Assembly member Gerry Kelly said Sinn Féin member Downey was a "long-time supporter of the Peace Process" and should be released. Gerry Kelly added:
"The decision to arrest and charge him in relation to IRA activities in the early 1980s is vindictive, unnecessary and unhelpful. It will cause anger within the republican community. Clearly, if John Downey had been arrested and convicted previously he would have been released under the terms of the Good Friday Agreement. As part of the Weston Park negotiation, the British Government committed to resolving the position of OTRs ['On the Runs'].
John Downey received a letter from the Northern Ireland Office in 2007 stating that he was not wanted by the PSNI or any British police force. Despite travelling to England on many occasions, now – six years on – he finds himself before the courts on these historic charges. This development represents bad faith and a departure from what was previously agreed by both governments. John Downey needs to be released and allowed to return home to his family."
Conditional bail
John Downey was granted conditional bail on 2 August 2013 to attend trial at the Old Bailey on 14 January 2014, where he will be represented by Gareth Peircewho famously represented those wrongly accused of the Guildford Four bombing. If he has the temerity to appear as an 'expert' witness at Downey's trial, Alan Feraday OBE should expect to face a withering cross-examination by Gareth Peirce.
On 25 February 2014, the BBC reported:
A man accused of killing four soldiers in the 1982 IRA Hyde Park bombing will not be prosecuted because he was given a guarantee he would not face trial. It follows a judge's ruling that an official assurance given in error meant John Downey's prosecution is "an abuse of process".
Another Alan Feraday prosecution bites the dust!
HYDE AND SEEK
Hyde Park bombing suspect John Downey goes on the run and moves his assets after being served court papers.
The convicted IRA man has fled his family home after being served court papers over the devastating 1982 attack.
And in June he shifted ownership of the property to his wife Phyliss, two months after The Sun launched the Hyde Park Justice campaign.
Downey also moved ownership of two plots of land to his wife, who took out a £227,000 loan against them.
It is understood she is now trying to sell the property that they jointly owned — while a house is built on one of the plots. Mark Tipper, whose Trooper brother Simon was among four soldiers killed in the London terror blast, hailed the news.
He said: "If he's innocent why's he moving his assets? Justice is getting closer."
Downey, 65, has until the start of next month to respond to a High Court claim submitted by victims' families. Court papers have been hand-delivered to his properties. But a judge's order means an ad placed last week in an Irish newspaper also counted as notification of the case to the suspect.
It is understood Downey is still in Donegal, Ireland. The Hyde Park Justice campaign has raised over £84,000 from Sun readers. You can donate via credit or debit card at www.crowdjustice.org/case/hyde-park-justice.
See the Sun for full story
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Mark Tipper
My name is Mark Tipper. My brother, Trooper Simon Tipper, was murdered by the IRA. He was just 19. I am raising money to bring the chief suspect to court after a government mistake let him walk free.
About the case
Case updates 23
We met our funding target
Yesterday we met our funding target of £85,000. Thank you to all those who have supported us these past few months. We couldn't have come this far without you. Your kindness and generosity have meant the world to us.
We can bring the Chief Suspect in one of Britain's worst terrorist atrocities to justice but time is running out, and our own government is thwarting our efforts. That is why we are asking the British public to support us instead. We need to hit our fundraising goal before August 1st – otherwise we will lose our chance and the Chief Suspect will evade justice yet again.
We urgently need your help. With it, we can succeed. Together, we can ensure justice is done. We cannot allow terrorists to get away with murder.
Clockwise from top left: Lance Corporal Jeffrey Young, Lieutenant Anthony Daly, Trooper Simon Tipper and Squadron Quartermaster Corporal Roy Bright
In 1982, my brother, Trooper Simon Tipper, was murdered in cold blood by IRA terrorists along with three other British soldiers during the Changing of the Guard Procession. Dozens of other soldiers and civilians were also injured and maimed. Seven horses were slaughtered. Later that day, seven bandsmen from the Royal Green Jackets were murdered in Regent's Park, believed to be by the same IRA team. This was one of the worst terrorist attacks ever committed on British soil.
The Chief Suspect spent thirty years on the run. In 2013, he was finally arrested and brought to trial, but, despite reports that police files link him to five other terrorist attacks, a "catastrophic mistake" by Tony Blair's government let him go.
With your support, we can help correct this mistake.
See here for more details and how to donate
See here for Hyde Park & Regent's Park Bombings – 20th July 1982 – Least We Forget!
The Glenanne Gang – History & Background
September 3, 2017 Deaths in Northern Ireland, Deaths in the Troubles, Major events in The TroublesBilly Hanna, Dublin and Monaghan Bombings, John Oliver Weir, John Weir, Mid-Ulster UVF, Pat Finucane Centre, Protestant Action Force, Provisional IRA, Robert McConnell, Robin "The Jackal" Jackson, The Glenanne Gang, UVF, Wesley Somerville, Wiiliam Billy McCaugheybelfastchildis
The Glenanne Gang
British government officials 'knew about loyalist Glenanne Gang'
A member of the notorious loyalist killer group, the Glennan Gang, has told how he believes its leader personally killed more than 100 people and dismissed suggestions that a public inquiry would exposed the truth. In a rare interview from his home in South Africa, John Weir insists that a truth commission is the only way that victims will get closure. Connla Young reports.
Former RUC officer and Glenanne Gang member John Weir. Picture by New Red TV
A FORMER RUC officer and member of the notorious Glenanne gang has claimed the British government was aware of the group's activities at the very highest level.
John Weir, who held the rank of sergeant, was speaking just weeks after a High Court judge ruled that the PSNI unlawfully frustrated any chance of an effective investigation into suspected state collusion with the sectarian killer gang.
Made up of members of the RUC, UDR and UVF, it operated across the Mid-Ulster area in the mid 1970s.
Based out of a farm owned by former RUC officer, James Mitchell in Glenanne in south Armagh, the gang is believed to have carried out around 120 murders, the majority of which were innocent Catholics.
Now one of its most prominent members, former sergeant John Weir, has said that the establishment of a truth commission and amnesty may be the only way some of the darkest secrets of the Troubles will ever be revealed.
Originally from Co Monaghan, he was a member of the RUC's Special Patrol Group in Armagh when he became involved in the activities of the Glenanne Gang.
The former policeman gave evidence to the 2003 Barron Report – which examined the 1974 Dublin and Monaghan bombings that claimed the lives of 33 people and an unborn child.
He and another former colleague William 'Billy' McCaughey were convicted of taking part in the murder of father-of-seven William Strathearn (39) at his home in Ahoghill, Co Antrim, in April 1977.
The former Derry GAA player and shopkeeper had opened his front door at 2am after the gunmen said they needed aspirin for a sick child.
Convicted in 1980 he was released from prison in 1993 and later went to live in Nigeria.
Now living in South Africa, the former policeman last said that senior officials in Downing Street would have been aware of the group's activities.
"Of course they would," he said in an interview with the Irish News.
"How would they not be?
"Right, for example, the army commanders……do you mean to say that those men were not actually feeding information.
"Even they were feeding information direct to government.
"Obviously some of it was going through their senior officers but not all.
"Some of those men, they themselves were connected to parliament.
"And I know that and I also know that they know that even the very bottom of army intelligence, which I don't think in a way were that capable a lot of them, but they knew all about Glenanne."
After last month's court ruling relatives of people killed by the gang demanded an independent inquiry be set up.
See Irish News for full story
The Glenanne gang or Glenanne group
The Glenanne gang or Glenanne group was a secret informal alliance of Ulster loyalists, mostly from Northern Ireland, who carried out shooting and bombing attacks against Catholics and nationalists during the Troubles, beginning in the 1970s.
Most of its attacks took place in the "murder triangle" area counties Armagh and Tyrone. It also launched some attacks elsewhere in Northern Ireland and in the Republic of Ireland.
The gang included British soldiers from the Ulster Defence Regiment (UDR), police officers from the Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC), and members of the Mid-Ulster Brigade of the Ulster Volunteer Force(UVF).
Twenty-five British soldiers and police officers were named as purported members of the gang. Details about the group have come from many sources, including the affidavit of former member and RUC officer John Weir; statements by other former members; police, army and court documents; and ballistics evidence linking the same weapons to various attacks. Since 2003, the group's activities have also been investigated by the 2006 Cassel Report, and three reports commissioned by Irish Supreme Court Justice Henry Barron, known as the Barron Reports.
A book focusing on the group's activities, Lethal Allies: British Collusion in Ireland, was published in 2013. It drew on all the aforementioned sources, as well as Historical Enquiries Team investigations.
Lethal Allies claims that permutations of the group killed about 120 people – almost all of whom were "upwardly mobile" Catholic civilians with no links to Irish republican paramilitaries. The Cassel Report investigated 76 killings attributed to the group and found evidence that British soldiers and RUC officers were involved in 74 of those. John Weir claimed his superiors knew he was working with loyalist militants but allowed it to continue.
The Cassel Report also said that some senior officers knew of the crimes but did nothing to prevent, investigate or punish. It has been alleged that some key members were double agentsworking for British military intelligence and RUC Special Branch.
Attacks attributed to the group include the Dublin and Monaghan bombings, the Miami Showband killings, and the Reavey and O'Dowd killings.
Many of the victims were killed at their homes or in indiscriminate attacks on Catholic-owned pubs with guns and/or bombs. Some were shot after being stopped at fake British Army checkpoints, and a number of the attacks were co-ordinated.
When it wished to "claim" its attacks, the group usually used the name "Protestant Action Force". The name "Glenanne gang" has been used since 2003 and is derived from the farm at Glenanne (near Markethill, County Armagh) that was used as the gang's main 'base of operations'.[12][13] It also made use of a farm near Dungannon.
Glenanne Gang
Fields near the farm where the gang was based (Ballylane townland, near Glenanne, County Armagh)
Ulster loyalism
John Weir
Billy McCaughey
Billy Hanna
Robin Jackson
Harris Boyle
Glenanne,
County Armagh,
Area of operations
Mainly County Armagh and east County Tyrone
Over 40 known members
Irish nationalists
Political situation in Northern Ireland
By the mid-1970s the violent ethno-political conflict known as the Troubles had radically transformed the daily lives of people in Northern Ireland; after five years of turbulent civil unrest, the bombings and shootings showed no signs of abating. The armed campaign waged by the Provisional IRA had escalated, with bombings in England and increased attacks on the security forces in Northern Ireland.
The British Army and the Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) bore the brunt of IRA violence and many Protestants felt their people to be under attack. Rogue members of the RUC Special Patrol Group (SPG) believed that the situation was rapidly deteriorating and that the IRA were actually 'winning the war'. As early as the end of 1973, it was suggested that drastic measures had to be taken to defeat the organisation. The SPG was a specialised police unit tasked with providing back-up to the regular RUC and to police sensitive areas.
On 10 February 1975, the Provisional IRA and British government entered into a truce and restarted negotiations. The IRA agreed to halt attacks on the British security forces, and the security forces mostly ended its raids and searches.
However, there were dissenters on both sides. Some Provisionals wanted no part of the truce, while British commanders resented being told to stop their operations against the IRA just when—they claimed—they had the Provisionals on the run.
There was a rise in sectarian killings during the truce, which 'officially' lasted until February 1976. Ulster loyalist paramilitaries, fearing they were about to be forsaken by the British government and forced into a united Ireland,
increased their attacks on Roman Catholics and nationalists. Loyalist fears were partially grounded in fact as Secret Intelligence Service officer Michael Oatley had engaged in negotiations with a member of the IRA Army Council during which "structures of disengagement" from Ireland were discussed. This had meant a possible withdrawal of British troops from Northern Ireland.
Loyalists killed 120 Catholics in 1975, the vast majority civilians.They hoped to force the IRA to retaliate in kind and thus hasten an end to the truce.
Formation of the Glenanne Gang
The Glenanne gang shared many members with the UVF Mid-Ulster Brigade, led by Robin "the Jackal" Jackson
It was during this exceptionally violent period that a group of loyalist extremists formed a loose alliance that was belatedly in 2003 given the name "Glenanne gang".The gang, which contained over 40 known members, included soldiers of the British Army's Ulster Defence Regiment (UDR), rogue elements of the RUC, the Mid-Ulster Brigade of the illegal paramilitary Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF) and some Ulster Defence Association (UDA) members.
This group began to carry out shooting and bombing attacks directed against Catholics and nationalists to retaliate for the IRA's intensified military campaign. Most of these attacks took place in the area of County Armagh and Mid-Ulster referred to as the "murder triangle" by journalist Joe Tiernan. It also launched attacks elsewhere in Northern Ireland and in the Republic of Ireland.
The name "Glenanne gang" is derived from the farm at Glenanne (near Markethill, County Armagh) that was used as the gang's arm dump and bomb-making site.
In his 2013 memoirs, Joseph Pearce, a British former white supremacist and senior member of the National Front who later converted to Catholicism and is a writer and academician at Aquinas College (Nashville, Tennessee, USA), revealed what he knew about collusion between the NF, the British Army, and loyalist death squads. According to Pearce,
"In spite of my own unwillingness to become too directly involved in the terrorist operations in Northern Ireland, I was very aware, as were the leaders of the UVF and UDA, that National Front members serving with the Army in Northern Ireland were smuggling intelligence information on suspected IRA members to the Loyalist paramilitaries. This information included photographs of suspected IRA members, the type of car they drove and its registration number, and other useful facts. I have little doubt that this information was used by the UVF and UDA to target and assassinate their enemies."
Alleged members
The following people, among others, have been implicated by Justice Barron and Professor Douglass Cassel in their respective reports as having been members of the Glenanne gang:
Key figures[
John Oliver Weir (born 1950, County Monaghan, Republic of Ireland) — an officer in the RUC Special Patrol Group (an "anti-terrorist" unit) and UVF volunteer. Weir was the son of a gamekeeper and was brought up on an estate near Castleblaney. He attended a Protestant boarding school in Dublin.
After joining the RUC in 1970, he worked at Strandtown RUC station in Belfast. In 1972, he was transferred to Armagh where he was recruited by the SPG on 1 August 1973. Following the IRA killing of two members of the security forces in 1974 and 1975, he was sent for his own safety to the SPG unit in Castlereagh, Belfast. On an unspecified date between January 1975 and September 1976, he joined the Glenanne gang. Weir then spent six weeks at the Lisanelly Army base in Omagh; in 1976 he was promoted to the rank of sergeant and transferred to Newry RUC barracks.
He claimed to have been directly involved in the bomb attack at Tully's Bar in Belleek, the attempted bombing of Renaghan's Bar, Clontibret, County Monaghan, and to have visited the Glenanne farm regularly during the autumn of 1976. In November 1977, he was sent to Newtownhamilton RUC barracks. In 1980, he left the RUC upon his conviction for the 1977 killing of William Strathearn, a Catholic chemist. He was released from prison in 1992. During and after his imprisonment he made a number of allegations incriminating his former associates in the Glenanne gang. His 1999 affidavit was published in the 2003 Barron Report on the Dublin and Monaghan bombings.
Weir also implicated Chief Inspector Harry Breen in having direct knowledge of the gang's activities in his Affidavit of 3 January 1999.
Among other claims, he stated "In summary, Down Orange Welfare was using RUC officers in Newry RUC station – McBride, Breen, myself – and another RUC officer, Sergeant Monty Alexander from Forkhill RUC station – to supply weapons to the UVF in Portadown. I later learned that these weapons were being manufactured by Samuel McCoubrey in Spa, Co. Down."
William "Billy" McCaughey (died 2006) — Armagh RUC SPG officer who had acted as a close protection guard for Ulster Unionist Party politician John Taylor and a UVF volunteer. He was a former member of the Ulster Special Constabulary. McCaughey was implicated by his colleague Weir in many Glenanne gang attacks such as the O'Dowd shootings, the assault on the Rock Bar, and he admitted to having kidnapped a Roman Catholic priest.
McCaughey was convicted along with Weir for the killing of William Strathearn and sentenced to 16 years imprisonment. McCaughey received a seven-year sentence for wounding Michael McGrath during the attack on the Rock Bar, was sentenced on explosives and possession charges and was also sentenced to three years' imprisonment for the kidnapping of Fr Hugh Murphy.
Billy Hanna (c. 1929 – 27 July 1975, Lurgan, County Armagh) — founder of the UVF Mid-Ulster Brigade and its commander until July 1975; he had also served as a sergeant in the C Company, 11th Battalion UDR before being dismissed for providing intelligence to the UVF. He was the gang's staff instructor. Colin Wallace maintained Hanna had organised the Dublin bombings in May 1974.
Journalist Joe Tiernan alleged that Hanna was an Intelligence Corps agent. He was the person who had approached James Mitchell for permission to use the property as an arms dump and bomb-making site. Hanna was shot dead outside his home in Lurgan in July 1975.
Robin "The Jackal" Jackson (27 September 1948, Donaghmore, County Tyrone – 30 May 1998, Donaghcloney, County Down) — commander of the UVF Mid-Ulster Brigade from July 1975 to the early 1990s, Ulster Defence Regiment (UDR) member and an alleged RUC Special Branch agent with ties to military intelligence.
He assumed leadership of the brigade upon the shooting death of Hanna, for which he was said by Tiernan to have been responsible. Weir implicated Robin Jackson in a number of the gang's killings and has named him as having been a "key figure" in the gang.
Following the 1993 Yorkshire Television programme The Hidden Hand which implicated Jackson in the Dublin bombings but did not mention him by name, he was questioned. He denied involvement in the three car bombings which left 26 people dead.[33] and Miami Showband killings.
He was only convicted once (in 1981), for possession of a .22 pistol, a .38 revolver, a magazine, 13 rounds of ammunition, and hoods; however, he was released after having served two years of a seven-year sentence. Jackson's fingerprints were found on a home-made silencer attached to a Luger pistol (serial number U 4) retrieved at Ted Sinclair's farm in 1976.
Jackson's name appeared on the Garda Síochána suspects list for the Dublin and Monaghan bombings.[34] Jackson was named in court as one of the killers of William Strathern by Weir and McCaughey. The court was told by an RUC officer that Jackson and Kerr were not before the court as part of "operational strategy".
Jackson died of lung cancer in 1998.
Robert McConnell — a UVF volunteer and 2nd Battalion UDR corporal. The Barron Report lists him as one of the suspects in the Dublin bombings. He allegedly had links to both RUC Special Branch and the Intelligence Corps, and it was claimed he was controlled before and after the bombings by Robert Nairac.
McConnell was named by both Lily Shields and Laurence McClure as being involved in the Donnelly's Bar killings. Weir states he took part in the John Francis Green shooting along with Robin Jackson and Harris Boyle. He was named by Weir as the leading gunman in the Reavey family shootings.
McConnell was killed by the IRA on 5 April 1976.
Laurence McClure — a UVF volunteer and RUC SPG officer, having joined the Armagh SPG in May 1975. He was a close neighbour of James Mitchell and owned a repair garage adjacent to the farm. McClure was named by Weir as having taken part in several sectarian attacks including those at Donnelly's Bar and the Rock Bar, the latter for which he was convicted and received a two-year sentence, suspended for three years. Weir alleges that McClure had helped assemble the bombs used in Dublin.
McClure admitted being a getaway driver for those involved in the Donnelly's Bar bombing and to have waited in the car with Lily Shields; the two acting as a "courting couple".
McClure was charged with withholding information in relation to the attack on Donnelly's Bar. The barrister for the UDR and the police … said he had obtained a nolle prosequi sentence, a Latin legal phrase meaning "to be unwilling to pursue" (amounting to "do not prosecute") against the charge. The only person who can authorise a nolle prosequi is the Attorney General.
James Mitchell (c. 1920 – May 2008) — an RUC Reserve officer and the owner of the Glenanne farm. He joined the RUC Reserve in September 1974 and was stationed at Markethill. He left the force on 1 July 1977 for "personal reasons".
Weir named him as a UVF member who regularly participated in paramilitary activities.Weir claimed that Mitchell admitted being involved in the Dublin and Monaghan bombings, and went on to claim that he had seen Mitchell mixing home-made ammonium-nitrate-and-fuel-oil explosive in the farmyard on one occasion.
He was convicted for possession of weapons found on his land after an RUC raid in December 1978. In an RUC interview on 9 August 2000, he staunchly denied Weir's allegations and referred to him as
"a damned liar and convicted murderer".
Mitchell died, aged 88, in May 2008 at Daisy Hill Hospital, Newry. Willie Frazer attended his funeral and told media
"I'm not saying he was lily–white but he was a decent man".
Robert John "R.J". Kerr (c. 1943 – 7 November 1997) — UDA commander. He was charged with having weapons and ammunition in suspicious circumstances in 1972; later found guilty of armed robbery on 10 March 1973. Kerr was sentenced in 1974 in relation to the intimidation and assaulting of two men in 1973 and received 18 months in jail. Kerr was named as one of the killers of William Strathearn by Weir and McCaughey. The court was told by an RUC officer that Jackson and Kerr were not before the court as part of "police strategy".
He died in a mysterious explosion, his body having been found in the vicinity of a burnt-out boat that was being towed on a trailer on the main Newry to Warrenpoint Road.
Harris Boyle (1953, Portadown – 31 July 1975, Buskhill, County Down) — UDR soldier and UVF volunteer. Boyle was unmarried and worked as a telephone wireman. He was charged with having weapons and ammunition in suspicious circumstances in 1972. Boyle was killed when a bomb he had placed on the Miami Showband bus exploded prematurely.
He was implicated in the Dublin and Monaghan bombings, and the killing of IRA volunteer John Francis Green in County Monaghan. According to submissions received by Mr Justice Barron, the Monaghan bomb was assembled at his home on Festival Road in Portadown's Killycomain estate.
Wesley Somerville (born County Tyrone – died 31 July 1975, Buskhill, County Down) — UDR soldier and a UVF lieutenant. He was a textile worker by trade. He was killed when a bomb he had placed on the Miami Showband bus exploded prematurely.
Wesley Somerville was also charged along with two others for kidnapping two bread deliverymen. The kidnapping charge was connected to a bomb attack at Mourne Crescent, Dungannon.
Weir named Somerville as having been involved in the 1974 bombing in Monaghan.
Gary Armstrong — RUC sergeant, given a two-year suspended sentence in relation to the kidnapping of a Catholic priest, Father Hugh Murphy, in retaliation for the murder of a policeman. Armstrong was named by Judge Barron as one of the group of RUC members who carried out the gun and bomb attack on the Rock Bar.
Joseph Stewart Young — UVF volunteer from Portadown. His name appears on the Garda suspects list for the Dublin and Monaghan bombings. John Weir claims that Young had been part of the unit that carried out the Monaghan bombing. When questioned, Young denied the allegation. He was also suspected of involvement in the attack on Donnelly's bar.
Captain John Irwin — UDR intelligence officer. Weir declares in his affidavit that Irwin provided the explosives for the Dublin and Monaghan bombings and delivered them to Mitchell's farm, where they were then assembled.
Lance corporal Thomas Raymond Crozier (born 1951, Lurgan, County Armagh) — C Company, 11th Battalion UDR, and UVF volunteer, he worked as a painting contractor. He was convicted in October 1976 in relation to the Miami Showband killings. He was also arrested in 1975 along with Samuel Fulton Neil and Robin Jackson in possession of four shotguns.
Sergeant James Roderick McDowell (from Lurgan, County Armagh) — also C Company, 11th Battalion UDR, and UVF volunteer, he was an optical worker; convicted in October 1976 in relation to Miami Showband killings.
John James Somerville (died January 2015) — former UDR soldier from Moygashel, County Tyrone; brother of Wesley (see above); worked as a lorry-helper; convicted on 9 November 1981 in relation to the Miami Showband killings. Somerville was also charged along with two others with kidnapping two bread deliverymen. The kidnapping charge was also connected to a bomb attack at Mourne Crescent in Dungannon. He was also convicted of an armed robbery on a CIÉ bus in Aughnacloy and causing approximately £12,000 worth of damage to the bus. He was named by Weir as having been involved in the Monaghan bombing.
Sarah Elizabeth "Lily" Shields — Mitchell's housekeeper. She was named by Weir as having provided the getaway car for those who attacked McArdle's Bar and Donnelly's Bar. Charges were later brought against her for withholding information regarding the latter attack. However, the trial judge and DPP brought a nolle prosequi against the charge in April 1981.
Norman Greenlee — UDR soldier and UVF volunteer. The Star pistol (serial number 344164) used in a number of Glenanne gang attacks was found at Greenlee's farm in Richhill, County Armagh in 1979. A large number of other weapons and ammunition was also found. He subsequently received a seven-year sentence for possessing the weapons and a concurrent four-year sentence for UVF membership.
George Moore was found guilty of the attempted killing of Patrick Turley, assault, and possession of a gun and ammunition.
Gordon Liggett — Ulster Defence Association (UDA) commander. He was found guilty of causing grievous and actual bodily harm to Patrick Turley; as well as armed robbery and possession of a gun and ammunition.
William Ashton Wright — UDR soldier. He was charged with having weapons and ammunition in suspicious circumstances in 1972. He was later found guilty of armed robbery, which had taken place on 10 March 1973. Wright was sentenced in 1974 in relation to the intimidation and assaulting of two men in 1973 and received a six-month suspended sentence.
George Hyde — charged in connection with the attempted murder of Patrick Turley; he was later found beaten to death in prison.
Edward "Ted" Sinclair (from Dungannon) was convicted of possession of a Luger pistol (serial number U 4), a .38 ACP pistol, homemade machine guns, gelignite and ammunition in 1976. He was released in 1979. Sinclair was arrested again in 1980 and charged with possession of a .45 revolver and ammunition. However, charges were withdrawn by the DPP. Sinclair was also charged with the 1976 killings of Peter and Jane McKearney (a married couple mistakenly believed to be the parents of an IRA volunteer with the same surname, Margaret McKearney, although there was no relation).
In 1982 (the following year), these charges were also dropped by the DPP.
Garnet James Busby was convicted of the killings of Peter and Jane McKearney in October 1975 (see above). He was also convicted of the killings of Andrew Small, James McCaughey, Joseph Kelly and Patrick Barnard at the Hillcrest Bar in Dungannon. He planted the bomb at O'Neill's Bar in Dungannon. During his trial an RUC inspector told the court that the same UVF gang was responsible for the attack on the Miami Showband.
William Parr was convicted of Denis Mullen's killing.
Billy Corrigan was named as taking part in Denis Mullen's killing during the trial of William Parr. Corrigan was killed by the IRA in 1976.
Henry Garfield Liggett was convicted of the killing of Patrick McNeice.
Dorothy Mullan was convicted of driving the car to the site of Patrick McNeice's killing.
Garfield Gerard Beattie was convicted of the killings of Denis Mullan, Jim McLoughlin and Patrick McNeice at the Eagle Bar in Charlemont; also convicted of the attempted killings of other patrons in the Eagle Bar.
David Henry Kane was convicted of the killing of Jim McLoughlin and the attempted killings of the other patrons in the Eagle Bar.
Joey Lutton — UDR soldier convicted of the attacks on the Eagle Bar and Clancy's Bar in Charlemont.
Samuel Fulton Neill (died 25 January 1976) — brother-in-law of Robin Jackson, arrested in 1975 alongside Jackson and Thomas Crozier in possession of four shotguns. He was fatally shot five times in the head after leaving a Portadown pub, allegedly by Jackson, for having passed on information to the police about the people involved in the Miami Showband attack.
Trevor Barnard was charged along with two others with the kidnapping of two bread deliverymen. The kidnapping charge was also linked to a bomb attack at Mourne Crescent in Dungannon.
Laurence Tate — UDR soldier. He was convicted along with two others of the bombing of an empty bungalow near Dungannon. He was also convicted of the bombing of Killen's Bar in Dungannon. He was arrested as part of the Miami Showband investigation.
Harold Henry McKay was convicted along with two others of the bombing of an empty bungalow near Dungannon. Also convicted of the bombing of Killen's Bar in Dungannon. He was arrested as part of the Miami Showband investigation.
John Nimmons was convicted along with two others of the bombing of an empty bungalow near Dungannon. Also convicted of the bombing of Killen's Bar in Dungannon. He was arrested as part of the Miami Showband investigation.
William Thomas Leonard — UDR soldier convicted of the killings of James and Gertrude Devlin, a married couple. He was also convicted of the bombing of Killen's Bar in Dungannon, and of the armed robbery of the CIÉ bus in Aughnacloy which caused approximately £12,000 worth of damage to the bus.
Sammy McCoo was named by McClure and Shields as being involved in the attack on Donnelly's bar. McCoo's name later appeared on the Garda suspects list for the Dublin and Monaghan bombings.
Ian Mitchell — RUC officer, received a two-year sentence, suspended for three years in relation to the attack on the Rock Bar. Ian Mitchell was one of the investigating officers into the killings of Betty McDonald and Gerald McGleenan at the Step Inn, Keady, County Armagh.
David Wilson — RUC officer, received a one-year sentence, suspended for two years in relation to the attack on the Rock Bar.
Alexander McCaughey — father of Billy McCaughey, given a one-year suspended sentence in relation to the kidnapping of Fr. Murphy.
The gang has also been linked to military intelligence liaison officer Captain Robert Nairac who worked for 14th Intelligence Company (The Det).
On The Hidden Hand programme made by Yorkshire Television in 1993, it was claimed that Robin Jackson was controlled by Nairac and 14th Intelligence.
In May 1977, Nairac was kidnapped by the IRA in Dromintee and taken across the border into the Republic where he was interrogated for more than an hour and pistol-whipped in Ravensdale Woods, County Louth. Nairac was then shot dead by Liam Townson.
Pte Ian Leonard Price, 2nd battalion, The Queens Reg Merlyn Rees, Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, lifted the proscription against the UVF on 4 April 1974, but it was made illegal once again on 3 October 1975; therefore, during the period between April 1974 and October 1975, membership of the UVF was not a crime. The largest loyalist paramilitary group in Northern Ireland, the Ulster Defence Association (UDA) was also not proscribed at the time.
Attacks attributed to the Glenanne gang
In 2004, the Pat Finucane Centre asked Professor Douglas Cassel (formerly of Northwestern University School of Law in Chicago) to convene an international inquiry to investigate collusion by members of the British security forces in sectarian killings in Northern Ireland committed during the mid-1970s. The gang's involvement in the killings was to be investigated in particular.
The panel interviewed victims and their relatives, as well as four members of the security forces. The four members of the security forces were: RUC SPG officers John Weir and Billy McCaughey; psychological warfare operative Colin Wallace and MI6 operative Captain Fred Holroyd. They all implicated the Glenanne gang in the attacks. In seven out of eight cases, ballistic tests corroborated Weir's claims linking the killings to weapons carried by the security forces. The interviews revealed many similarities in the way the attacks were carried out, while various documents (including the Barron Report) established a chain of ballistic history linking weapons and killings to the gang. Justice Barron commented in reference to the gang:
"This joining of RUC and UDR members with members of Loyalist paramilitary organisations is emphasised by the use of the same or connected guns by intermingled groups of these organisations."
The Glenanne gang has been linked to the following attacks and/or incidents:
4 October 1972: killing of Catholic civilian Patrick Connolly. He was killed and his mother and brother were injured when a grenade was thrown through the window of their house in Portadown, County Armagh. The family were Catholics living in a mixed area of the town. The grenade was of a type manufactured in the United Kingdom "for use by the British Armed Forces". According to reliable loyalist sources, UVF members were responsible.
20 February 1973: an armed robbery on a CIÉ bus in Aughnacloy, which caused approximately £12,000 worth of damage to the bus.
10 March 1973: attempted murder of Patrick Turley in Portadown.
10 March 1973: armed robbery, for which Glenanne gang members were later jailed.
24 May 1973: bombing of Killen's Bar in Dungannon, County Tyrone. UDR soldiers Laurence Tate and William Thomas Leonard were convicted, along with two others.
4 August 1973: attempted killings of Bernadette Devlin McAliskey and her husband at their home in Coalisland, County Tyrone.
5 August 1973: killing of Catholic civilians Francis and Bernadette Mullen. They were shot dead by two gunmen at their farmhouse in Broughadoey, near Moy, County Tyrone. Their two-year-old son was also wounded by gunfire. The "Ulster Freedom Fighters" claimed responsibility but it is believed UVF members were responsible.
28 October 1973: killing of Catholic civilian Francis McCaughey. He was wounded by a booby-trap bomb at a farm in Carnteel, near Aughnacloy, County Tyrone. He died on 8 November. The "Ulster Freedom Fighters" claimed responsibility but it is believed UVF members were responsible.His brother-in-law, Owen Boyle, was later shot dead by the Glenanne gang.
29 October 1973: killing of Catholic civilian Patrick Campbell. He was shot dead by a gunman who arrived at the door of his house in Banbridge, County Down. The "Ulster Freedom Fighters" claimed responsibility but it later emerged that UVF members had been responsible. Although Robin Jackson was arrested and Campbell's widow picked him out as the killer at an identity parade, murder charges against him were soon dropped.
17 January 1974: gun attack on Boyle's Bar in Cappagh, County Tyrone. Two gunmen entered the pub and opened fire indiscriminately on the customers. Catholic civilian Daniel Hughes was killed and three others wounded.
19 February 1974: bomb attack on Traynor's Bar at Aghinlig, between Blackwatertown and Charlemont, County Armagh. Catholic civilian Patrick Molloy and Protestant civilian John Wylie were killed. Two other civilians were wounded. In 1981 a serving UDR soldier, a former UDR soldier and a former UVF member were convicted of the murders.
7 May 1974: killing of Catholic civilians James and Gertrude Devlin, who were shot dead near their home at Congo Road, near Dungannon, County Tyrone. They were driving home with their 17-year-old daughter. As they neared their house, a man in a military uniform stopped the car and opened fire on them. James and Gertrude were killed outright and their daughter, Patricia, in the back seat, was wounded. UDR soldier William Thomas Leonard was convicted for the killings. His membership in the UDR was withheld from the courts by the police.
17 May 1974: Dublin and Monaghan bombings, in which 33 civilians were killed (see below).
3 September 1974: shooting of T.J. Chambers in Mountnorris, County Armagh.
3 September 1974: shooting incident. The 9 mm Luger pistol used in the incident was the same often used in other Glenanne gang attacks, including the murders of the Reavey brothers.
27 October 1974: killing of Catholic civilian Anthony Duffy. His body was found at the back of a farmhouse at Mullantine, near Portadown, County Armagh. He had been beaten, strangled and then shot by UVF members after taking a lift from Lurgan to Portadown, together with a friend who managed to escape.
20 November 1974: gun attack on Falls Bar at Aughamullen, near Clonoe, County Tyrone. Catholic civilian Patrick Falls was killed and another wounded. UDR soldier James Somerville was convicted for the attack.
29 November 1974: attacks in Newry and Crossmaglen, County Armagh. A bomb exploded in a hallway of Hughes' Bar in Newry, injuring many people. Catholic civilian John Mallon died of his injuries on 15 December. At the inquest an RUC witness said the pub was used by all sections of the community and had no links with any organization. Another bomb exploded in the hallway of McArdle's Bar, Crossmaglen, injuring six. Catholic civilian Thomas McNamee died from his injuries almost a year later, on 14 November 1975.
According to reliable loyalist sources, UVF members were responsible for both attacks.
10 January 1975: killing of IRA volunteer John Francis Green, who was found shot dead at a farmhouse in Tullynageer near Castleblayney, County Monaghan. In his statement, Weir claims that the gunmen were Robin Jackson, Robert McConnell, and Harris Boyle.
10 February 1975: gun attack on Hayden's Bar in Gortavale, near Rock, County Tyrone. A gunman entered the pub and opened fire indiscriminately on the customers. Catholic civilians Arthur Mulholland and Eugene Doyle were killed while four others were wounded.
1 April 1975: killing of Catholic civilian Dorothy Trainor. She and her husband were shot by at least two gunmen as they walked through a park near Garvaghy Road, Portadown. Two of her sons were later killed by loyalists.The "Protestant Action Force" claimed responsibility.
3 April 1975: killing of Catholic civilian Martin McVeigh. He was shot dead near his home at Ballyoran Park, off the Garvaghy Road in Portadown, as he cycled home from work. Robin Jackson was later arrested in possession of the murder weapon, but the RUC did not question or charge him with the murder. The "Protestant Action Force" claimed responsibility.
11 April 1975: killing of Catholic civilian Owen Boyle. Gunmen shot him through the window of his house in Glencull, near Aughnacloy, County Tyrone. He died on 22 April 1975. The "Protestant Action Force" claimed responsibility.
21 April 1975: killing of Catholic civilians Marion Bowen (who was eight months pregnant), and her brothers, Seamus and Michael McKenna, by a booby-trap bomb left in Bowen's house at Killyliss, near Granville, County Tyrone. Seamus and Michael were renovating the house, which had been unoccupied for almost a year. The "Protestant Action Force" claimed responsibility.
27 April 1975: gun attack on a social club in Bleary, County Down. Gunmen burst into the Catholic-frequented darts club and opened fire indiscriminately. Catholic civilians Joseph Toman, John Feeney and Brendan O'Hara were killed while others were wounded.
The "Protestant Action Force" claimed responsibility.
May–August
24 May 1975: bomb attack on the home of the Grew family in Moy, County Tyrone. Much of the house was destroyed and six children were injured. In 1981 a serving UDR soldier, a former UDR soldier and a former UVF member were convicted of partaking in the attack.
31 July 1975: Miami Showband killings at Buskhill, County Down (see below)
1 August 1975: gun attack on a minibus near Gilford, County Down. The minibus had been travelling from Banbridge to Bleary with nine people on board; all were Catholics and most had been returning from a regular bingo session. Like the Miami Showband attack, gunmen in British Army uniforms stopped the minibus at a fake military checkpoint.
They then opened fire, wounding seven people.Catholic civilian Joseph Toland was killed outright and another Catholic civilian, James Marks, died of his wounds in January 1976. According to reliable loyalist sources,UVF members were responsible.
2 August 1975: shooting at Fane Valley Park, Altnamachin, County Armagh.
22 August 1975: gun and bomb attack on McGleenan's Bar in Armagh. A masked gunman burst into the crowded pub and opened fire while another planted a bomb. It exploded as they ran to a getaway car, causing the building to collapse. Catholic civilians John McGleenan, Patrick Hughes and Thomas Morris were killed while many others were injured. According to reliable loyalist sources, UVF members were responsible.
24 August 1975: killing of Catholic civilians Colm McCartney and Sean Farmer, who were found shot dead at Altnamachin, near Newtownhamilton, County Armagh. They were driving home from a Gaelic football match in Dublin when they were apparently stopped at a fake military checkpoint by men in British Army uniform.
They were found shot dead a short distance away. Earlier that night, three RUC officers in an unmarked car had been stopped at the same checkpoint but had been allowed through. However, the officers suspected that the checkpoint had been fake. After receiving radio confirmation that there were no authorized checkpoints in the area that night, they reported the incident and requested help from the British Army to investigate it, but no action was taken. The HET said the original police investigation "barely existed", describing the police's failure to interview eyewitnesses as "inexplicable".
Weir claims that an RUC officer confessed to partaking in the attack, alongside a UDR soldier and UVF members. The "Protestant Action Force" claimed responsibility.
September–December
1 September 1975: killing of SDLP member Denis Mullen, who was shot dead by two gunmen who called at the door of his home in Collegeland, County Armagh.
4 September 1975: gun and bomb attack on McCann's Bar in Ballyhegan, County Armagh. Catholic civilian Margaret Hale died of her wounds on 22 September.
23 October 1975: killing of Catholic civilians Peter and Jane McKearney. They were shot dead by gunmen who arrived at the door of their house in Listamlat, near Moy, County Tyrone. The gunmen may have mistaken the couple for the parents of an IRA member with the same surname — Margaret McKearney — but they were not related. Margaret McKearney was wanted by Scotland Yard and the UVF had threatened to "eliminate" her.
A contemporary newspaper article reported that "Army issue ammunition" was used. Among the first on the scene were neighbours Charles and Teresa Fox, who were both later killed by the UVF in 1992.
19 December 1975: attacks in Dundalk and Silverbridge. At 6:20pm, a car bomb exploded outside Kay's Tavern in Dundalk, Co Louth on the southern side of the border. Catholic civilians Hugh Watters and Jack Rooney were killed and more than twenty others were injured. Three hours later, gunmen attacked Donnelly's Bar and filling station in Silverbridge, less than ten miles away on the northern side of the border. They fired at people outside the building, then fired on the customers and threw a bomb inside.
Two Catholic civilians (Patrick and Michael Donnelly) and an English civilian (Trevor Brecknell, married to a local woman) were killed. The "Red Hand Commando" claimed both attacks and it is believed they were co-ordinated. It is believed the Siverbridge attack was carried out by the Glenanne gang while the Dundalk bombing was carried out by other members of the Mid Ulster UVF, probably with some help from Belfast UVF members. RUC officer Laurence McClure admitted involvement in the Silverbridge attack. UDR Corporal Robert McConnell was also involved, according to John Weir and Lily Shields. Credible evidence from the RUC officer who led the investigation indicates that police believed they knew who the killers were and that the killers included RUC and UDR officers.The RUC refused the Garda Síochána access to a key witness in the Dundalk bombing.
Vallely's pub in Ardress
26 December 1975: bomb attack on Vallelly's Bar, Ardress, County Armagh. Catholic civilian Seamus Mallon was killed.
4 January 1976: Reavey and O'Dowd killings. At about 6pm, gunmen broke into the Reavey family home in Whitecross, County Armagh. They shot brothers John, Brian and Anthony Reavey. John and Brian were killed outright while Anthony died of a brain hemorrhage less than a month later. Twenty minutes after the shooting, gunmen broke into the O'Dowd family home in Ballydougan, about twenty miles away. They shot dead Joseph O'Dowd and his nephews Barry and Declan O'Dowd. All three were members of the SDLP. Barney O'Dowd was wounded by gunfire. RUC officer Billy McConnell admitted taking part in the Reavey killings and accused RUC Reserve officer James Mitchell of being involved too. According to Weir, UDR Corporal Robert McConnell was the lead gunman in the Reavey killings and Robin Jackson was the lead gunman in the O'Dowd killings. The "Protestant Action Force" claimed responsibility for the two co-ordinated attacks.
7 March 1976: car bomb attack on the Three Star Inn, Castleblayney, County Monaghan. Civilian Patrick Mone was killed. The bomb was placed in a car next to that of Mr Mone's and was not intended for him. According to Weir, the attack was carried out by RUC officer Laurence McClure and UDR soldier Robert McConnell, using explosives provided by UDR Captain John Irwin and stored beforehand at James Mitchell's farmhouse. A memorial to Patrick Mone is near the site of the bombing in Castleblayney.
8 March 1976: bomb and gun attack on Tully's Bar in Belleeks, County Armagh. RUC officer John Weir admitted helping to plan the attack and accused RUC Reserve officer James Mitchell of being the mastermind.
17 March 1976: car bomb attack on Hillcrest Bar in Dungannon on Saint Patrick's Day. Four Catholic civilians – Joseph Kelly, Andrew Small and 13-year-olds Patrick Bernard and James McCaughey – were killed. Twelve others were injured.
15 May 1976: attacks in Charlemont, County Armagh. Gunmen detonated a bomb in the hallway of Clancy's Bar, killing three Catholic civilians (Felix Clancy, Sean O'Hagan and Robert McCullough) and injuring many others. They then shot into the nearby Eagle Bar, killing a Catholic civilian, Frederick McLaughlin, and wounding several others. Locals claimed that the UDR had been patrolling the village for a number of nights beforehand, but were absent the night of the attacks. UDR soldier Joey Lutton was later convicted of partaking in both attacks.His s tatus as a member of the security forces was withheld from the courts by the police.
5 June 1976: attack on the Rock Bar near Keady, County Armagh. Gunmen arrived at the pub and shot Catholic civilian Michael McGrath in the street outside. They then fired at customers through the windows and threw a nail bomb inside, but it only partially exploded. The HET said the RUC investigation is "cursory, ineffective and even fails to interview the only witness, who survived being shot down".
RUC officers William McCaughey, Laurence McClure and Ian Mitchell confessed and were convicted for the attack, while RUC officer David Wilson was convicted for withholding knowledge that the attack was to take place. However, only McCaughey served time in prison. According to the book Lethal Allies, the officers were wearing their police uniforms underneath boiler suits.
25 July 1976: killing of Catholic civilian Patrick McNeice, shot dead at his home in Ardress, County Armagh.
16 August 1976: car bomb attack on the Step Inn, Keady, County Armagh. Catholic civilians Elizabeth McDonald and Gerard McGleenon were killed and others were injured. Ten days before the bombing, the RUC asked the Army to put Mitchell's farmhouse under surveillance because they had intelligence that a bomb was being stored there. According to Weir, the bomb was to be detonated at Renaghan's Bar across the border in Clontibret, County Monaghan. On 15 August, Weir scouted the route to the pub but was stopped by Gardaí, who told him they were mounting extra security due to a warning from the RUC. Weir told the rest of the gang and they decided to attack Keady instead. The Army surveillance operation was ended and the bomb attack went ahead. Weir, Mitchell and the others involved were not arrested by the RUC and were allowed to remain in the force.
25 February 1977: killing of Catholic RUC officer Joseph Campbell, who was shot dead outside the RUC base in Cushendall, County Antrim. Weir claims that the killers were alleged RUC Special Branch agent Robin Jackson, RUC officer William McCaughey, and R.J. Kerr.
19 April 1977: killing of Catholic civilian William Strathearn, a chemist, who was shot dead at his shop in Ahoghill, County Antrim. RUC SPG officers John Weir and Billy McCaughey were convicted for the killing.
18 June 1978: kidnapping of Father Hugh Murphy. This was in retaliation for the IRA's kidnapping and killing of an RUC officer the day before. Murphy was eventually released unharmed after appeals from a number of Protestant ministers, including Ian Paisley. Sergeant Gary Armstrong and Constable Billy McCaughey, both of the RUC (along with the latter's father, Alexander McCaughey), were convicted for the kidnapping.
29 February 1980: killing of Catholic civilian Brendan McLaughlin, who was killed in a drive-by-shooting on Clonard Street, Belfast. He was killed with the same Sterling submachine gun used in the Miami Showband, O'Dowd family and Devlin family killings.
Glenanne gang weapons linked to attacks
The Glenanne farm and the Dublin and Monaghan bombings
James Mitchell, RUC reserve officer and owner of the Glenanne farm
It is claimed in the Barron Report that Billy Hanna had asked James Mitchell for permission to use his farm as a UVF arms dump and bomb-making site.Information that loyalist paramilitaries were regularly meeting at the farm appeared on British Intelligence Corps documents from late 1972.
According to submissions received by Mr Justice Barron, the Glenanne farm was used to build and store the bombs that exploded in Dublin and Monaghan. The report claims they were placed onto Robin Jackson's poultry lorry, driven across the border to a carpark, then activated by Hanna and transferred to three allocated cars. These cars exploded almost simultaneously in Dublin's city centre at about 5.30pm during evening rush hour, killing 26 civilians. Ninety minutes later a fourth car bomb exploded in Monaghan, killing another seven civilians.
Mitchell and his female housekeeper, Lily Shields both denied knowledge that the farm was used for illicit paramilitary activity. They also denied partaking in any UVF attacks. In his affidavit, John Weir affirms that the farmhouse was used as a base for UVF operations that included the Dublin and Monaghan bombings.
Weir also stated that on one occasion an RUC constable gave him two weapons to store at the Glenanne farm:
"He then offered me the two sub-machine guns because he knew about my connection to Loyalist paramilitaries. I accepted them and took them to Mitchell's farmhouse".
In his affidavit, Weir recounted when in March 1976 he had gone to the farm where between eight and ten men dressed in camouflage had been parading in the farmyard. Inside he had discussed with Mitchell and others the details of a planned bombing and shooting attack against a nationalist pub, Tully's in Belleeks. Mitchell had shown him the floor plans of the pub's interior which he had drawn up highlighting the lack of escape routes for the pub's patrons. The plan was temporarily called off when it was discovered that the British Army's Parachute Regiment was on patrol that evening in the area.
Weir returned to Belfast the next day and the attack went ahead that evening, 8 March. There were no casualties, however, as Mitchell's floor plans had been inaccurate, and the customers had fled into the pub's living quarters for safety once the shooting had commenced outside, and the bomb only caused structural damage to the building.
Mr. Justice Barron concluded in his report:
"It is likely that the farm of James Mitchell at Glenanne played a significant part in the preparation for the attacks [Dublin and Monaghan bombings]. It is also likely that members of the UDR and RUC either participated in, or were aware of those preparations."
Miami Showband massacre
Site of the Miami Showband killings, in which the Glenanne gang was implicated
On 31 July 1975, four days after Hanna's shooting and Jackson's assumption of leadership of the Mid-Ulster brigade, the Miami Showband's minibus was flagged-down outside Newry by armed UVF men wearing British Army uniforms at a bogus military checkpoint. Two UVF men (Harris Boyle and Wesley Somerville) loaded a time delay bomb on the minibus but it exploded prematurely and killed them.
The remaining UVF gunmen then opened fire on the bandmembers, killing three (Brian McCoy, Anthony Geraghty and Fran O'Toole) and wounding two (Stephen Travers and Des McAlea). Two of the three men convicted of the killings and sentenced to life imprisonment were serving members of the UDR, and the third was a former member. The Luger pistol used in the attack was found to have been the same one used to kill Provisional IRA member John Francis Green in January 1975 and was also used in the O'Dowd killings of January 1976.
The following May, the security forces found Jackson's fingerprints on a home-made silencer attached to a Luger. Although charged, Jackson avoided conviction. A Sterling 9mm submachine gun was also used in the Miami Showband killings. The 2003 Barron Report suggests that the guns were taken from the stockpile of weapons at the Glenanne farm. The Luger pistol used in the Green, Miami Showband, and O'Dowd attacks was later destroyed by the RUC on 28 August 1978.
Liaison officer Captain Robert Nairac has been linked to the Miami Showband killings and the killing of John Francis Green. Miami Showband survivors Stephen Travers and Des McAlea both testified in court that a man with a "crisp, clipped English accent, and wearing a different uniform and beret" had been at the scene of the explosion and subsequent shootings.
Martin Dillon in The Dirty War, however, adamantly states that Nairac was not involved in either attack. The Cassel Report concluded that there was
"credible evidence that the principal perpetrator [of the Miami Showband attack] was a man who was not prosecuted – alleged RUC Special Branch agent Robin Jackson".
Although Jackson had been questioned by the RUC following the Showband attack, he was released without having been charged.
Reavey and O'Dowd killings and the Kingsmill massacre
The co-ordinated sectarian shootings of the Reavey and O'Dowd families, allegedly perpetrated by the Glenanne gang and organised by Robin Jackson, was followed by the South Armagh Republican Action Force retaliation with a sectarian attack the following day. It stopped a minibus at Kingsmill and shot dead the ten Protestant passengers, after being taken out of their minibus which was transporting them home from their workplace in Glenanne.
In 2001, an unidentified former Glenanne gang member (a former RUC officer who had been sentenced to life imprisonment for his part in the gang's killings) revealed that the gang had planned to kill at least thirty Catholic schoolchildren as revenge for Kingsmill.
It drew up plans to attack St Lawrence O'Toole Primary School in the South Armagh village of Belleeks. The plan was aborted at the last minute on orders of the UVF leadership, who ruled that it would be "morally unacceptable", would undermine support for the UVF, and could lead to civil war.
The gang member who suggested the attack was a UDR soldier; he was later shot dead by the IRA. The UVF leadership allegedly suspected that he was working for the British Intelligence Corps, and that military intelligence were seeking to provoke a civil war. In 2004, former gang member McCaughey spoke of the planned retaliation and said that the UVF leadership also feared the potential IRA response.
The Cassel Report states that convictions were obtained in only nine of the 25 cases it investigated and that several of those convictions are suspect as erroneous and incomplete. A month before Nairac's killing, a Catholic chemist, William Strathearn, was gunned down at his home in Ahoghill, County Antrim. SPG officers Weir and McCaughey were charged and convicted for the killing. Weir named Jackson as having been the gunman but Jackson was never interrogated for "reasons of operational strategy".
The Special Patrol Group was disbanded in 1980 by the RUC after the convictions of Weir and McCaughey for the Strathearn killing.
In December 1978 the authorities raided the Glenanne farm and found weapons and ammunition. This made it necessary for the gang to seek an alternative base of operations and arms dump. James Mitchell was charged and convicted of storing weapons on his land. Northern Ireland's Lord Chief Justice Robert Lowry presided over his trial on 30 June 1980.
The farm had been under RUC observation for several months before the raid.
On 16 October 1979, Robin Jackson was arrested when he was found with a number of weapons and hoods. In January 1981 he was sentenced to seven years imprisonment for possession of guns and ammunition, but was then released in May 1983.
John Weir stated that the Glenanne gang usually did not use the name "UVF" whenever it claimed its attacks; instead it typically employed the cover names of Red Hand Commando, Red Hand Brigade or Protestant Action Force.
A judicial review into the actions of the gang was announced by the High Court in Belfast in February 2015. This review found, in July 2017 that the decision by PSNI Chief Constable Matt Baggott had effectively prevented an "overarching thematic report" into the activities of the Glenanne gang had breached the victims' families' rights as defined in Article 2 of the European Convention on Human Rights.
The Court had been told that there was evidence of collusion by elements of the British state in at least three of the cases and Mr. Justice Treacy said that there was a "credible expectation of collusion" in the remaining cases. Therefore, he concluded, the decision of the Chief Constable to end the broader review into the activities of the Glenanne gang and the alleged collusion of elements of the British state in those murders had resulted in a "real risk that this will fuel in the minds of the families the fear that the state has resiled from its public commitments because it is not genuinely committed to addressing the unresolved concerns that the families have of state involvement."
Mr Justice Treacy gave the parties until the start of September 2017 to try to reach an agreement on the appropriate form of relief.
See Dublin and Monaghan Bombings
See Miami Showband Killings
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