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Category Archives: Irish Republican Army


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Birth of Liam Deasy, Irish Republican Army Officer

Liam Deasy, Irish Republican Army (IRA) officer who fights in the Irish War of Independence and the Irish Civil War, is born in Kilmacsimon, Bandon, County Cork on May 6, 1896. In the latter conflict, he is second-in-command of the anti-Treaty forces for a period in late 1922 and early 1923. Before the anti-Treaty and pro-Treaty split, he is considered closely associated with Michael Collins.

Deasy is the third among six sons of William Deasy, seaman, and Mary Deasy (née Murray). He is educated locally at Ballinadee before leaving school at the age of thirteen to work in nearby Bandon.

During the Irish War of Independence (1919–21), Deasy is adjutant of the IRA’s 3rd Cork Brigade (West Cork). He serves under Tom Barry in one of the unit’s best known actions, the Crossbarry ambush in March 1921. His younger brother, Pat, dies in action at the Kilmichael ambush in November 1920, an engagement at which Deasy is not present. He also takes part in the Tooreen ambush.

Deasy opposes the Anglo-Irish Treaty. In the months that follow he tries to persuade Collins to renegotiate aspects of the treaty, especially to remove an oath to the British king from the constitution of the new Irish Free State. When fighting breaks out in Dublin in June 1922 between pro and anti-Treaty forces, he sides with the Anti-Treaty IRA in the ensuing Irish Civil War. However, he is reluctant to fight his former comrades and voices the opinion that the fighting should have ended with the Free State seizure of the Four Courts.

In late July 1922, Deasy commands 1,500 anti-Treaty fighters who hold a line around Kilmallock south of Limerick city against about 2,000 Free State troops under Eoin O’Duffy. His men are the most experienced IRA fighters of the 1919-21 war and hold their position until August 8, when they are outflanked by seaborne landings on the southern coast. His men then disperse. He goes on the run in the southeast of the country.

In August 1922, Deasy is in command of a band of republican guerrillas in West Cork when they hear that Collins is in the area. Deasy has his men prepare an ambush for Collins’ convoy at Béal na Bláth, should it return by the same route it had taken earlier.

Deasy and most of his men do not take part in the ambush as they had retired to a nearby pub, assuming that they had missed Collins. However, Collins arrives as the last of Deasy’s men are clearing the mine and barricade that had been erected on the road at Béal na Bláth. Collins is killed in the ensuing firefight. Deasy later writes in his memoirs that he profoundly regrets the death of his former commander.

In January 1923, by which time Deasy has become Deputy Chief of Staff of the IRA, he is captured by Free State forces near Clonmel, County Tipperary, and sentenced to death. He is aware that the newly formed government plans on wholesale executions and knows that the IRA will retaliate with reprisals. He decides that it is now time to end the war. He signs a document (written by his captors) ordering the men under his command to surrender themselves and their arms to the government. He is spared execution. On the day that his order is published, Free State authorities demand that the prisoners in a jail in Limerick sign a statement agreeing to unconditional surrender, threatening wholescale executions to those who refused. Some republicans denounce Deasy as a traitor and a coward for this action, but he argues in his book, Brother against Brother, that he was opposed to continuing the civil war anyway and would have called on republicans to surrender whether or not he had been captured.

Deasy takes no further part in politics following the end of the Irish Civil War. In 1924, he sets up a business making weatherproof textiles. On November 24, 1927, he marries Margaret Mary O’Donoghue. They have three daughters together.

During The Emergency, Deasy serves in the Irish Army from 1940 to 1945, reaching the rank of commandant. He later writes two memoirs about his experiences during the revolutionary period: Toward Ireland Free and Brother against Brother, the latter being published after his death.

Deasy dies at St. Anne’s Hospital, Northbrook Road, Dublin, on August 20, 1974. He is buried in Bohernabreena Cemetery in Dublin.


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Birth of Proinsias Mac Airt, Activist & IRA Volunteer

Proinsias Mac Airt (English: Frank Card), Irish republican activist and long-serving member of the Irish Republican Army (IRA), is born in Belfast, Northern Ireland, on April 18, 1922.

Mac Airt first becomes involved in Irish republicanism as a boy when he joins the Fianna Éireann. His first imprisonment is in 1942 when he is sent to jail for illegal military foot drilling. He Is later interned during the IRA’s Border Campaign of 1956-1962.

Having retired at some earlier point, Mac Airt returns to the republican movement in 1969, throwing his lot in with the newly established Provisional Irish Republican Army (PIRA) and their political arm Provisional Sinn Féin. Indeed, in early 1970 his Patrick Pearse cumann, which he sets up in the Clonard area of the Falls Road, is the first branch of Provisional Sinn Féin established in Belfast and proves central to the growth of the dissident party in the city. In August 1970, he Is appointed editor of the Belfast-based Republican News, succeeding Jimmy Steele who had died soon after being appointed editor. Despite his advancing age Mac Airt also becomes involved in the gun battles that rage between the republicans from Falls and loyalists from the neighbouring Shankill Road. As a consequence, he becomes one of the leaders of the nascent PIRA in Belfast. He is publicly named as a leading republican by General Anthony Farrar-Hockley who commands the British Army present during the clashes and with whom Mac Airt has held failed negotiations at the scene of conflict. He serves as Adjutant to Billy McKee, who is first commander of the Provisional IRA Belfast Brigade. According to Brendan Hughes, Mac Airt’s Kane Street home doubles as Belfast Brigade headquarters at the early stage in the movement’s history.

On April 15, 1971, Mac Airt, along with Billy McKee, is arrested by the British Army when found in possession of a handgun. Both men are sentenced under the Explosive Substances Act 1883 and sent to Crumlin Road Gaol. In the prison the two men are recognised as the leaders of the republican prisoners, a role held by Gusty Spence on the loyalist side. They co-operate informally with Spence to maintain order until they agree to establish an official Camp Council. The make-up of this group sees Mac Airt and McKee representing the PIRA, Spence and an associate identified only as “Robert” representing the Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF) and Ned McCreery and James Craig as Ulster Defence Association (UDA) delegates, with members of the Official IRA (OIRA) and Irish National Liberation Army (INLA) eventually added.

Mac Airt is involved in the talks held between republicans and clergymen from various Protestant churches held at Feakle, County Clare, on December 12, 1974. While the talks produced little, he Is one of those who maintains contact with the clergymen. Indeed, on January 19, 1975, one of the ministers, Rev William Arlow of the Irish Council of Churches (ICC), even introduces Mac Airt and his ally Jimmy Drumm to British government officials Michael Oatley and James Allan in an attempt to have the republican grievances heard.

Although a new generation of leaders emerges in the Provisional IRA and Sinn Féin, Mac Airt remains an influential veteran. He is close to Danny Morrison and Tom Hartley and helps to ensure the removal of Seán Caughey from the editorship of Republican News in 1975 and his replacement by Morrison.

In 1968, Mac Airt records two vocal songs, “Croppy Boy” and “Flag of the Fianna” on the LP record Irish Songs of Freedom produced for the Outlet Recording Co. Ltd, Belfast.

Mac Airt dies on January 8, 1992, at the age of 69. The President of Sinn Féin, Gerry Adams, delivers the graveside oration at his funeral, describing him as “a radical in the Connolly tradition.”


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Hunger Striker Bobby Sands Wins Seat in the British Parliament

On April 9, 1981, imprisoned Irish Republican Army (IRA) hunger striker Bobby Sands is elected to the Parliament of the United Kingdom as the MP for Fermanagh and South Tyrone.

Sands stands as a candidate of the “Anti-H Block” campaign – the section of the Maze prison in Maze, County Down, Northern Ireland, reserved for republicans and loyalists convicted of terrorist offences. He wins just over 52% of the vote in the Northern Ireland by-election compared to 49% for the candidate of the Official Unionist party, Harry West. His winning margin is 1,400 but over 3,000 ballot papers are spoiled.

Recriminations over his victory begin almost immediately. Unionist parties come under fire for not mounting an effective challenge. There is also sharp criticism of the failure of the moderate Catholic Social Democratic and Labour Party (SDLP) to contest the seat. Many believe the absence of an alternative Catholic candidate ensures victory for Sands in a seat with a Catholic majority.

Sands’ election agent, Owen Carron, says the British Government has been sent a message. “The nationalist people have voted against Unionism and against the H-blocks. It is time Britain got out of Ireland and put an end to the torture of this country,” he says.

At the time of his election, Sands, 27, has served four years of a fourteen-year sentence for firearms possession. He began his hunger strike 41 days earlier to press the republican prisoners’ claim to be treated as prisoners of war.

The government has to decide how to respond to Sands’ victory.  It can try to have him expelled on the grounds that he is an “unacceptable member.” However, unless he starts to eat again, he is not expected to live for more than another few weeks. He has already lost two stone and is too weak to leave his bed in the prison’s hospital wing.

Sand’s victory is the second time the voters of Fermanagh and South Tyrone have elected a republican prisoner as their MP. The first, Philip Clarke, in 1955, is disqualified because the law then does not allow convicts to take up political office.

In spite of attempts by the European Commission of Human Rights to mediate, Sands dies on May 5, 1981. He is the first of ten republican prisoners to die after hunger strikes. They attract international media attention and sympathy for the republicans.

The hunger strikes come to an end in October 1981. However, the Conservative Government of Margaret Thatcher grants the republicans only a few minor concessions.

(From: “1981: Hunger striker elected MP” on “On The Day 1950-2005,” BBC, news.bbc.co.uk)


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The Clogheen Ambush

The Clogheen Ambush takes place in the early morning of March 23, 1921, as six members of “C” Company, First Battalion, 1st Cork Brigade of the Irish Republican Army (IRA) are shot by a party of Black and Tans and Royal Irish Constabulary (RIC) at a farm at Ballycannon, Clogheen, just outside Cork, County Cork, during the Irish War of Independence. The IRA believes that they have been betrayed by Patrick ‘Cruxy’ Connor. Connor has returned to Cork after the Coolavokig Ambush, which had taken place on February 25. Once in Cork he is soon arrested by the RIC for the possession of a revolver. The IRA believes that Connors broke down under interrogation and betrayed them.

Cornelius O’Keefe farms 105 acres at Ballycannon, on the road leading from Clogheen to Tower. His house is a known ”safe house” where volunteers can shelter when it is unsafe for them to sleep at home. On the farm there are secure hiding places for the guns and explosives with which they carry out their missions.

At 4:00 a.m on the morning of Wednesday, March 23, O’Keefe is awakened by the arrival of a large force of police. They break down the farm door with blows from their rifle butts. The family is ordered back to the bedrooms and the house is thoroughly searched. The British then search the farmyard, where six volunteers are discovered asleep in a barn. 

A local schoolteacher whose house overlooks the two fields outside the barn is awakened by the sound of gunshots at about 4:30 a.m., while it is still quite dark. He watches the lights moving around the farmyard. He hears one voice scream out and another shout “run for it.” He can barely see a man breaking away and running across the field. A volley of shots ring out and the man falls. Another man with a light walks toward the body. After ten minutes there are more shots but this time he sees nobody fall. Later he sees another man fleeing and more shots ring out. As the light increases, he identifies the men with guns as police. Later he watches as the police bring down bodies in blankets and lay them outside the house in the boreen, which leads from the O’Keeffe farmyard to the public road. Around 6:00 a.m. the bodies are placed in lorries which then drive away.

Meanwhile Cornelius O’Keeffe, the farm owner, is brought across the field where he sees five bodies laid out in blankets. He watches as they are placed in the lorries. In his sworn deposition he states that a sixth man is then brought out blindfolded, still alive, and is also put in the lorry. O’Keefe is put in a third lorry, which follows the other two to Victoria Barracks. There the first two lorries speed off and he loses sight of them. He is imprisoned in a cell in the Barracks and is kept there until on April 17, when he is finally released without charge.

The six IRA men killed are:

  • Daniel Crowley, aged 23. occupation plasterer,  of 171 Blarney Street, Cork
  • William Deasy, aged 20, of Mount Desert , Blarney Road, Cork
  • Thomas Dennehy, aged 21, of 104 Blarney Street, Cork
  • Daniel Murphy, aged 24. occupation pig buyer, of Orrery Hill, off Blarney Street , Cork
  • Jeremiah O’Mullane, aged 23, of 237 Blarney Street, Cork
  • Michael O’Sullivan, aged 20 of 281 Blarney Street ,Cork

(From: “Ballycannon, Clogheen – IRA ambushed by the British – 23 Mar 1921,” posted on http://www.theauxiliaries.com | Pictured: The Clogheen Ambush Memoral in County Cork)


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The Abercorn Restaurant Bombing

The Abercorn Restaurant bombing is a bomb attack that takes place in a crowded city centre restaurant and bar in Belfast, Northern Ireland, on March 4, 1972. The bomb explosion claims the lives of two young women and injures over 130 people. Many of the injuries are severe and include the loss of limbs and eyes. The Provisional Irish Republican Army is blamed, although no organisation ever claims responsibility and nobody is ever charged in connection with the bombing. According to Ed Moloney, an Irish journalist who has written extensively about the IRA, republican sources have unofficially confirmed the group’s involvement.

The Abercorn is on 7-11 Castle Lane in central Belfast and houses a ground-floor restaurant and upstairs bar. It is owned by 45-year-old Bill O’Hara, a Catholic businessman. On Saturday, March 4 1972, it is packed with late afternoon shoppers when an anonymous caller issues a bomb warning to 999 at 4:28 p.m. The caller does not give a precise location, but advises that a bomb will go off in Castle Lane in five minutes’ time. The street, located in the busy Cornmarket area, mills with crowds of people shopping and browsing as is typical on a Saturday in Belfast.

Two minutes later, at 4:30 p.m., a handbag containing a five-pound gelignite bomb explodes under a table inside the ground-floor restaurant. Two young Catholic friends are killed outright: Anne Owens (22), who is employed at the Electricity Board, and Janet Bereen (21), a hospital radiographer. The young women have been out shopping together and have stopped at the Abercorn to have coffee. They are seated at the table nearest the bomb and take the full force of the blast. Owens had survived a previous bombing at her workplace. More than 130 are injured in the explosion, which overturns tables and chairs, and brings the ceiling crashing down onto the ground floor restaurant. Many people are severely maimed. Some have their limbs blown off while others suffer terrible head and facial injuries, burns, deep cuts and perforated eardrums. Three have eyes destroyed by shards of flying glass. Two sisters, Jennifer and Rosaleen McNern (one of whom is due to be married), are both horrifically mutilated. Jennifer loses both legs and Rosaleen, the bride-to-be, loses her legs, right arm and one eye.

Witnesses describe a scene of panic and chaos as the bloodied survivors stumble through the smoke, broken glass, blood, and rubble, crawling over one another to get away, while firemen attempt to bring out the injured, many of whom lay with their bodies mangled, unable to move. A Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) officer is one of the first people to arrive on the scene. He describes the carnage that greets him as something he will never forget. “All you could hear was the moaning and squealing and the people with limbs torn from their bodies.”

A woman who had been inside the restaurant before the blast later tells an inquest that she had seen two teenaged girls walk out of the Abercorn leaving a handbag behind shortly before the explosion. This same woman was waiting at a bus stop when the bomb went off. A detective-sergeant establishes that the explosion’s epicentre is to the right of the table where the two girls had been sitting. The bomb is reportedly left behind inside a handbag.

Nobody is ever charged in connection with the bombing and no paramilitary organisation ever claims responsibility for it. Both wings of the IRA deny involvement and condemn the bombing. However, the RUC and British Military Intelligence blame the Provisional IRA First Battalion Belfast Brigade and it is now widely accepted that it was responsible. There is a public backlash against the organisation in Irish nationalist and Catholic areas such as West Belfast. The two dead women were both Catholic, along with many of the injured including the McNern sisters, and the Abercorn Bar was a popular venue with many young Catholics and nationalists.

Provisional IRA Chief of Staff Seán Mac Stíofáin claims the bombing is the work of loyalist paramilitaries. According to Mac Stíofáin, the Woodvale Defence Association (WDA) had made threats against the Abercorn in its weekly newsletter after the Abercorn management refused to play the British national anthem. The WDA denies the allegations, adding that one of its members had a friend who was badly injured in the blast. The day after the bombing, a leaflet allegedly circulated by the loyalist Vanguard Unionist Progressive Party (VUPP) declares: “We make no apologies for Abercorn. No apologies were made for Aldershot […] These premises were being used extensively by Southern Irish shoppers for the transmission of information vital to the terrorist campaign…” Vanguard leader Rev. Martin Smyth dismisses the statement as fake.

According to Ed Moloney in his book Voices from the Grave, IRA sources have since confirmed, albeit unofficially, that the Provisional IRA was responsible. Moloney suggests that, based on eyewitness accounts, two teenaged IRA girls were probably the bombers. Unnamed republican sources suggest that the Abercorn was targeted because the upstairs bar was frequented by off-duty British Army soldiers.

The detonation of a bomb in a city centre restaurant on a Saturday afternoon packed with shoppers, and the severity of the injuries—inflicted on mostly women and children—ensures that the attack causes much revulsion and leaves a lasting impression on the people of Belfast. It is condemned by both unionist and Irish nationalist politicians and also by church leaders. Ian Paisley calls on the government “to mobilise and arm every able-bodied volunteer to meet the enemy.” The extent of the injuries the blast inflicts results in the Royal Victoria Hospital implementing a “disaster plan” for the first time.

The sculptor F. E. McWilliam produces a series of bronzes (1972–73) known as Women of Belfast in response to the Abercorn bombing.

Unrelated to the bombing, the Abercorn features in a sectarian attack in July 1972, when Michael McGuigan, a Catholic working in the bar, is abducted by loyalist paramilitaries, shot and left for dead, but survives. He had been dating a Protestant waitress who also worked in the Abercorn, which is why the loyalist group targets him.

The Abercorn is demolished in 2007.

(Pictured: A victim’s body being removed from the scene by members of the security forces following the bomb explosion)


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Birmingham Six on Verge of Freedom

After 17 years in prison, the Birmingham Six could be freed within weeks. An announcement on February 25, 1991, by the Director of Public Prosecutions, Alan Green, says the convictions of the Birmingham Six can no longer be considered safe and satisfactory. Hugh Callaghan, Paddy Joe Hill, Gerry Hunter, Richard McIlkenny, Billy Power, and Johnny Walker, all from Northern Ireland, were all jailed in 1975 for an Irish Republican Army (IRA) attack on two pubs in Birmingham, England, in November 1974 in which 21 people died. The Birmingham Six have consistently maintained their innocence. 

Speaking during a live radio broadcast by Irish broadcaster RTÉ, one of the six, Hugh Callaghan, speaks about his ordeal. “It should have happened a long time ago. It has been known for years and years that we were innocent,” he says. 

The February 25 preliminary hearing is told both scientific and police evidence presented at the original trial can no longer be relied upon and that therefore the Crown‘s case against the men has collapsed. 

Their third appeal is to be heard at the Court of Appeal on Monday, March 4, 1991. New evidence collected in the prior year is to be presented to the court, which will make the final decision on whether or not to release the men.

Friends, family and supporters are overjoyed by the news. The Irish government issues a statement saying it shares their relief and joy.

Gareth Peirce, the solicitor for five of the men, says the case is “a national disgrace” and calls for the evidence to be made public.

Patsy Power, William Power’s wife, says, “It’s over and done but the system has to be altered so nothing like this happens again.”

Former Master of the Rolls Tom Denning, Baron Denning, who rejected the men’s appeal in 1980, says he is saddened by the case. “As I look back I am very sorry, because I always thought that our police were splendid and am very sorry that in this case it appears the contrary,” he says.

The Birmingham Six are released amid scenes of wild jubilation on March 14, 1991, after their convictions are quashed by the Court of Appeal. Their case – and that of the Guildford Four freed in 1989 – lead to the creation of a Royal Commission on Criminal Justice which makes various recommendations in 1993.

The six men struggle to cope with freedom following their release. Several turn to drink and most of their marriages suffer as a result. 

Their fight for what they consider adequate compensation for one of Britain’s most notorious miscarriages of justice continues. Patrick Hill sets up his own pressure group – Miscarriages of Justice Organisation – and in 2002 says there are up to 4,000 people wrongfully imprisoned in the United Kingdom.

In February 1999, Gareth Peirce, the lawyer for five of the six, hands back an Order of the British Empire (CBE) awarded to her at the New Year Honours list.

The real Birmingham pub bombers have not been prosecuted.

(From: “1991: Birmingham Six on verge of freedom,” BBC ON THIS DAY, http://www.news.bbc.co.uk)


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1978 British Army Gazelle Helicopter Downing

On February 17, 1978, a British Army Aérospatiale Gazelle helicopter, serial number XX404, goes down near Jonesborough, County Armagh, Northern Ireland, after being fired at by a Provisional Irish Republican Army unit from the South Armagh Brigade. The IRA unit is involved at the time in a gun battle with a Royal Green Jackets observation post deployed in the area, and the helicopter is sent in to support the ground troops. The helicopter crashes after the pilot loses control of the aircraft while evading ground fire.

Lieutenant Colonel Ian Douglas Corden-Lloyd, 2nd Battalion Green Jackets commanding officer, dies in the crash. The incident is overshadowed in the press by the La Mon restaurant bombing, which takes place just hours later near Belfast.

By early 1978, the British Army forces involved in Operation Banner have recently replaced their aging Bell H-13 Sioux helicopters for the more versatile Aérospatiale Gazelles. The introduction of the new machines increases the area covered on a reconnaissance sortie as well as the improved time spent in airborne missions. In the same period, the Provisional IRA receives its first consignment of M60 machine guns from the Middle East, which are displayed by masked volunteers during a Bloody Sunday commemoration in Derry. Airborne operations are crucial for the British presence along the border, especially in south County Armagh, where the level of IRA activity means that every supply and soldier has to be ferried in and out of their bases by helicopter since 1975.

The Royal Green Jackets have been in South Armagh since December 1977, and have already seen some action. Just a few days after arrival, two mortar rounds hit the C Company base at Forkhill, injuring a number of soldiers. In the aftermath of the attack, two Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) officers are wounded by a booby trap while recovering the lorry where the mortar tubes are mounted. Two days later, a patrol near the border suffers a bomb and gun attack, leaving the commanding sergeant with severe head wounds. The sergeant is picked up from the scene by helicopter. He is later invalided from the British Army as a result of his injuries.

On January 17, 1978, a Royal Green Jackets observation post deployed around the village of Jonesborough begins to take heavy fire from the “March Wall,” which draws parallel with the Irish border to the east, along the Dromad woods. The soldiers return fire, but the short distance to the border and the open ground prevents them from advancing.

The Commanding Officer, Lieutenant Colonel Ian Corden-Lloyd, along with Captain Philip Schofield and Sergeant Ives fly from the battalion base at Bessbrook Mill to assess the situation and provide information to the troops. They are escorted by a Scout helicopter with an Airborne Reaction Force (ARF), comprising a medic and three soldiers from the 2nd Battalion Light Infantry. While hovering over the scene of the engagement, the Aérospatiale Gazelle receives a barrage of 7.62 mm tracer rounds. The pilot loses control of the aircraft during a turn at high speed to avoid the stream of fire. The Aérospatiale Gazelle hits a wall and crashes in a field, some 2 km from Jonesborough. According to the crew and passengers of the Scout, the Aérospatiale Gazelle hits the ground twice after losing power, with its rotor blades trashing into the soil following the second impact, and then cartwheels across the field. The Scout lands the ARF while still under IRA fire. The soldiers rush to the wrecked helicopter, some 100 metres away from the site of the initial crash.

Corden-Lloyd is killed and the other two passengers are wounded. The machine comes to rest on its right side. The pilot remains trapped inside the wreckage, but he survives thanks to his helmet. The IRA later claim they had shot at the helicopter with an M60 machine gun. The IRA unit vanishes into the Dromad woods to the Republic of Ireland. Some Gardaí witness the attack from the other side of the border.

The gun battle and Aérospatiale Gazelle shootdown is displaced from the headlines by the deaths of twelve civilians in the La Mon restaurant bombing on the same day, some of whom are burned to death. Initially the British Army downplays the IRA’s claim as published by An Phoblacht, that the helicopter was shot down, on the basis that no hits were found on the wreckage, but finally they acknowledged that the IRA action had caused the crash.

The death of Corden-Lloyd, a former Special Air Service officer, is deeply regretted by the British Army, who regarded him as promising. He is awarded a posthumous mentioned in despatches “in recognition of gallant and distinguished service in Northern Ireland.” In 1973, Irish republicans had accused Corden-Lloyd and his subordinates of brutality against Belfast Catholics during an earlier tour of the Royal Green Jackets in 1971, at the time of Operation Demetrius.


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The Murder of Robert McCartney

The murder of Robert McCartney occurs in Belfast, Northern Ireland, on the night of January 30, 2005, and is carried out by members of the Provisional Irish Republican Army.

McCartney, born in 1971, is a Roman Catholic and lives in the predominantly nationalist Short Strand area of east Belfast, and is said by his family to be a supporter of Sinn Féin. He is the father of two children and is engaged to be married in June 2005 to his longtime girlfriend, Bridgeen Hagans.

McCartney is involved in an altercation in Magennis’ Bar on May Street in Belfast’s city centre on the night of January 30, 2005. He is found unconscious with stab wounds on Cromac Street by a police patrol car and dies at the hospital the following morning. He is 33 years old.

The fight arises when McCartney is accused of making an insulting gesture or comment to the wife of an IRA member in the social club. When his friend, Brendan Devine, refuses to accept this or apologise, a brawl begins. McCartney, who is attempting to defend Devine, is attacked with a broken bottle and then dragged into Verner Street, beaten with metal bars and stabbed. Devine also suffers a knife attack, but survives. The throats of both men are cut and McCartney’s wounds include the loss of an eye and a large blade wound running from his chest to his stomach. Devine is hospitalised under armed protection.

When Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) officers arrive at the scene, their efforts to investigate the pub and surrounding area are met with an impromptu riot. Rioting by youths, specifically attacking the police, force them to pull back from the area, which delays initial investigation. Police with riot gear arrive later in the evening and are also attacked. Alex Maskey of Sinn Féin claims, “It appears the PSNI is using last night’s tragic stabbing incident as an excuse to disrupt life within this community, and the scale and approach of their operation is completely unacceptable and unjustifiable.” There are suggestions that the rioting is organised by those involved in the murder, so that a cleanup operation can take place in and around where the murder took place. Clothes worn by McCartney’s attackers are burned, CCTV tapes are removed from the bar and destroyed and bar staff are threatened. No ambulance is called. McCartney and Devine are noticed by a police car on routine patrol, who call an ambulance to the scene.

When the police launch the murder investigation they are met with a “wall of silence” None of the estimated seventy or so witnesses to the altercation come forward with information. In conversations with family members, seventy-one potential witnesses claim to have been in the pub’s toilets at the time of the attacks. As the toilet measures just four feet by three feet, this leads to the toilets being dubbed the TARDIS, after the time machine in the television series Doctor Who, which is much bigger on the inside than on the outside.

Sinn Féin suspends twelve members of the party and the IRA expels three members some weeks later.

Gerry Adams, then president of Sinn Féin, urges witnesses to come forward to “the family, a solicitor, or any other authoritative or reputable person or body”. He continues, “I want to make it absolutely clear that no one involved acted as a republican or on behalf of republicans.” He suspends twelve members of Sinn Féin. He stops short of asking witnesses to contact the police directly. The usefulness of making witness statements to the victim’s family or to a solicitor is derided by the McCartneys and by a prominent lawyer and Social Democratic and Labour Party (SDLP) politician, Alban Maginness, soon afterward.

On February 16, 2005, the IRA issues a statement denying involvement in the murder and calls on the perpetrators to “take responsibility.”

On March 8, 2005, the IRA issues an unprecedented statement saying that four people are directly involved in the murder, that the IRA knows their identity, that two are IRA volunteers, and that the IRA has made an offer to McCartney’s family to shoot the people directly involved in the murder.

In May 2005, Sinn Féin loses its council seat in the Pottinger area, which covers the Short Strand, with the McCartney family attributing the loss to events surrounding the murder.

Since this time, the sisters of McCartney have maintained an increasingly public campaign for justice, which sees Sinn Féin chief negotiator Martin McGuinness make a public statement that the sisters should be careful that they are not being manipulated for political ends.

The McCartney family travels to the United States during the 2005 Saint Patrick’s Day celebrations where they are met by U.S. Senators (including Hillary Clinton and John McCain) and U.S. President George W. Bush who express support in their campaign for justice.

Support for Sinn Féin by some American politicians is diminished. Adams is not invited to the White House in 2005 and Senator Edward Kennedy backs out of a meeting that had been previously scheduled. The McCartney family, previously Sinn Féin supporters, pledge to never support the party again, and a cousin of the sisters who raised funds for Sinn Féin in the United States insist that she will not be doing so in the future.

On May 5, 2005, Terence Davison and James McCormick are remanded in custody, charged with murdering McCartney and attempting to murder Devine respectively. McCormick is originally from England. They are held in the republican wing of HM Prison Maghaberry. Roughly four months later the accused are released on bail, and in June 2006, the attempted murder charge against McCormick is dropped, leaving a charge of causing an affray. On June 27, 2008, Terence Davison is found not guilty of committing the murder. Two other men charged with affray are also cleared.

In November 2005, the McCartney sisters and Bridgeen Hagans, the former partner of McCartney, refuse to accept the Outstanding Achievement award at the Women of the Year Lunch, because it would mean their sharing a platform with Margaret Thatcher, whom they dislike.

In December 2005, the McCartney sisters meet with UK Prime Minister Tony Blair, and tell him they believe the murder had been ordered by a senior IRA member, and that Sinn Féin was still not doing all it could to help them.

On January 31, 2007, two years after the murder, and in line with the party’s new policy of supporting civil policing, Sinn Féin president Gerry Adams says that anyone with information about the murder should go to the police.

On May 5, 2015, an IRA man believed to have been involved in the death of McCartney, Gerard ‘Jock’ Davison, is shot dead. Early in the investigation the police rule out either a sectarian attack or the involvement of dissident republicans.

The McCartney family has lived in the Short Strand area of Belfast for five generations. However, some local people in the Short Strand area, which is a largely nationalist area, does not welcome their dispute with the IRA. A campaign of intimidation by republicans drives members of the family and McCartney’s former fiancée to relocate and also causes one member to close her business in the city centre. The last McCartney sister to leave the area, Paula, departs Short Strand on October 26, 2005.

The family remain in contact with the family of Joseph Rafferty of Dublin, who dies under similar circumstances on April 12, 2005.


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Gerry Adams Says IRA Will Not Meet Arms Deadline

On January 27, 2000, Sinn Féin President Gerry Adams indicates that the Irish Republican Army (IRA) will not deliver arms ahead of the Ulster Unionist Party’s (UUP) February deadline.

With a report due on Monday, January 31, and widely expected to state that the IRA is not ready to disarm, the Northern Ireland peace process appears headed for a fresh crisis. The report by Canadian Gen. John de Chastelain, head of the province’s independent commission overseeing the handing in of weapons, is expected to confirm that no arms have been turned in.

The Ireland on Sunday newspaper says de Chastelain will tell the British and Irish governments that the IRA has put most of its weapons into secret, sealed dumps in the Republic of Ireland. Such disclosures put enormous pressure on Adams, the leader of the Irish republican political party, Sinn Féin. 

The UUP, the province’s main Protestant political group, has already threatened to pull out of Northern Ireland‘s fledgling power-sharing government if the IRA does not start disarming.

The UUP calls a top-level party meeting for February 12. A negative report from the decommissioning body will heighten fears that UUP leader David Trimble will make good on his threat to resign as leader of the new government, effectively allowing his party to shut down the province’s first government in 25 years.

Of Adams’s role in the disarmament process, Trimble says, “He asked us to create the circumstances to help him … we did that … we took the risk and created the situation he asked us to create. “Now we hope he now is able to demonstrate his good faith by responding.”

Adams says, “I am concerned at what appears to be an attempt by unionists to hijack the entire process, put up unilateral demands, perhaps in the course of that, tear down the institutions that are only two months in being. I understand why unionists want decommissioning. It is just not within my grasp to deliver it on their terms, and neither is it my responsibility.”

Adams says he can give no assurances that the IRA will hand over its weapons by May 22, the date set by the 1998 Good Friday Agreement for the completion of disarmament, although he stresses he is committed to decommissioning. “No, I can’t and it isn’t up to me,” Adams tells BBC Television when asked if he can guarantee disarmament by May.

Political insiders hint that the report will not be published until Monday (January 31) afternoon, suggesting the highly sensitive document is still being worked on by de Chastelain.

Any unionist pullout from the home-rule government on February 12 will create a political vacuum. Britain may intervene before that to suspend the fledgling executive, in the hope that it can be resurrected quickly if progress eventually is made on disarmament. Sinn Féin warns that either course of action could lead to the IRA breaking off contact with de Chastelain and the ending of disarmament prospects.

Meanwhile, on the eve of the report, thousands of Roman Catholics mark an event and day that symbolizes the province’s past troubles — Bloody Sunday.

Waving Irish flags, some 5,000 protesters retrace the steps of a civil rights march in Londonderry in 1972 that ended in bloodshed when British troops fired on unarmed protesters and killed thirteen people, mostly teenagers. A fourteenth man died later from his wounds. Victims’ relatives and local children carry fourteen white crosses, photos of the dead and a banner that reads, “Bloody Sunday, the day innocence died.” The march passes the scene of the killings and ends in front of Londonderry’s city hall — a spot where the 1972 march was supposed to have finished.

Organizers issue a message to British Prime Minister Tony Blair that they want a forthcoming inquiry not to end in the same way as a probe held within months of the killings, which exonerated the British soldiers by suggesting that some of the victims had handled weapons that day. “Twenty-eight years on from Bloody Sunday, there is still no recognition of the role the British government played in the premeditated attack on unarmed demonstrators,” Barbara de Brun, a top IRA official, tells the crowd.

Relatives of those killed are upset that soldiers who took part in the shootings would be allowed to remain anonymous during the new probe. They are also concerned about a newspaper report that the army recently destroyed thirteen of the rifles used by the soldiers, complicating any ballistics tests at the inquiry.

“Once again, the political and military establishment are up to their old tricks. We won’t accept a public relations exercise,” Alana Burke, who was injured by an armored car during the Bloody Sunday march, tells the crowd.

(From: “Hopes dim for IRA disarmament, peace accord” by Nic Robertson and Reuters, CNN, cnn.com, January 30, 2000)


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The 1978 Crossmaglen Ambush

On December 21, 1978, three British soldiers are shot dead when the Provisional Irish Republican Army‘s South Armagh Brigade ambushes an eight-man British Army foot patrol in Crossmaglen, County Armagh, Northern Ireland.

Since the Troubles began, the South Armagh area—especially around Crossmaglen and other similar republican strongholds—is one of the most dangerous places for the British security forces, and the IRA’s South Armagh brigade carries out numerous ambushes on the British Army and Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC). This includes the 1975 Drummuckavall ambush and the 1978 downing of a British Army Gazelle helicopter which leads to the death of one British soldier and four others being seriously injured.

A number of British security force members are killed in Crossmaglen during 1978. On March 4, British soldier Nicholas Smith (20), 7 Platoon, B Company, 2nd Royal Green Jackets, is killed by an IRA booby trap bomb while attempting to remove an Irish flag from a telegraph pole in Crossmaglen. On June 17, William Turbitt (42) and Hugh McConnell (32), both Protestant RUC officers, are shot by the IRA while on mobile patrol near Crossmaglen. McConnell is killed at the scene, but Turbitt is kidnapped. The next day, a Catholic priest, Fr. Hugh Murphy, is kidnapped in retaliation but later released after appeals from Protestant clergy. The body of Turbitt is found on July 10, 1978.

On December 21, 1978, when the patrol is near Rio’s Bar coming around a bend, a red Royal Mail-type van is spotted by the patrols commander Sergeant Richard Garmory. The van is fitted with armor plating and is facing away from the patrol. Garmory believes the van is in a suspicious place on the other side of the street. He notes what appear to be boxes in the back of the van, which actually provide cover for the IRA Volunteers. IRA members open fire from the back of the van with an M60 machine gun which is fitted down onto the floor in the back of the van. Three other IRA volunteers armed with AR-15-style rifles and another Volunteer with an AK-47 open up on the patrol. The British soldiers on patrol return fire but do not claim any hits. A handful of Christmas shoppers scramble for cover. Three soldiers at the front of the patrol are fatally wounded. They are treated by staff at a nearby health center and then taken to Musgrave Park Hospital but are declared dead on arrival. The soldiers killed are Graham Duggan (22), Kevin Johnson (20) and Glen Ling (18). All are members of the British Armies Grenadier Guards regiment. The patrol commander, Richard Garmory, says of the ambush:

On coming round the bend near the Rio Bar, I saw 40 yards away what looked like a British Rail parcel delivery van parked partly on the pavement on the left facing away from us. It had an 18-inch tailboard with a roll shutter that could be pulled down. The van immediately struck me as highly suspicious because I saw what looked like cardboard boxes piled to the top in the back, all flush with the tailboard so they would fall out if the van moved off fast. I instantaneously put my magnifying sight to my to my eye and saw four firing slits, two above the other two, among the boxes. I immediately opened fire.

Four months later the South Armagh brigade strikes again at British security forces, this time near Bessbrook which is several miles from Crossmaglen. Four RUC officers are killed in the 1979 Bessbrook bombing, when a 1,000 lb. land mine is detonated when the RUC patrol is passing by the bomb, killing all the officers outright.

(Pictured: South Armagh Brigade, Provisional Irish Republican Army, manning a temporary checkpoint close to Crossmaglen, 1978)