Coniston massacre
Brooks was killed on or about 7 August 1928, and his body was partly buried in a rabbit hole. No eyewitnesses to the actual murder were ever identified, and there are conflicting accounts of the discovery of the body and subsequent events.
Kesh ambush
However, according to Conflict Archive on the Internet, there was a gun battle at the scene of the attempted bombing, between a number of IRA men and British troops in which Mac Giolla Bhrighde was killed. A British Army soldier, Lance Corporal Al Slater, from Leicestershire, was also killed in the exchange of fire, further contradicting the Republican sources. Charles "Nish" Bruce served with Slater on this operation. His autobiography, "Freefall", under the pseudonym "Tom Read", recounted in detail an exchange of fire and the respective deaths of both Slater and Mac Giolla Bhrighde. Andy McNab, a former SAS soldier, supported this view in his book "Immediate Action". Mac Giolla Bhrighde's companion, Ciaran Fleming, drowned in the swollen Bannagh River as he tried to get away.