Wright attracts considerable media attention at the Drumcree standoff, where he supports the Orange Order‘s desire to march its traditional route through the Catholic/Irish nationalist area of Portadown. In 1994, the UVF and other paramilitary groups call ceasefires. However, in July 1996, Wright’s unit breaks the ceasefire and carries out a number of attacks, including a sectarian killing. For this, Wright and his Portadown unit of the Mid-Ulster Brigade are stood down by the UVF leadership. He is expelled from the UVF and threatened with execution if he does not leave Northern Ireland. Wright ignores the threats and, along with many of his followers, defiantly forms the breakaway Loyalist Volunteer Force (LVF).
In March 1997, Wright is sent to the HM Maze Prison for having threatened the life of a woman. While imprisoned, he continues to direct the LVF’s activities. On December 27 of that year, he is assassinated at the prison by Irish National Liberation Army (INLA) prisoners as he is led out to a van for a visit with his girlfriend. The LVF carries out a wave of sectarian attacks in retaliation.
Owing to his uncompromising stance as an upholder of Ulster loyalism and opposition to the Northern Ireland peace process, Wright is regarded as a cult hero, cultural icon, and martyr figure by hardline loyalists. His image adorns murals in loyalist housing estates and many of his devotees have tattoos bearing his likeness.
Wright’s funeral procession moves at a snail’s pace on a grey and windy day. Groups of mourners take turns carrying the coffin. Women carry a wreath that simply says “Billy.” Twenty men with tight haircuts and white shirts with black armbands flank the cortège. There is heavy security. Troops stand guard on bridges and Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) Land Rovers prowl the housing estates. A spotter plane flies overhead. A lone piper plays “Abide with Me” before a banner bearing the letters “LVF.”
Wright is buried at Seagoe Cemetery, Portadown, Northern Ireland.
Fulton is born in Portadown, County Armagh in 1961, one of the children of Jim Fulton, a former British soldier who works as a window cleaner. His mother, Sylvia (née Prentice), comes from a family of wealthy car dealers. He grows up in the working classProtestant Killycomain area.
Fulton leaves school early and promptly joins the Mid-Ulster UVF, being sworn in at the age of 15. His early activity includes being part of the UVF gang that opens fire on a Craigavon mobile sweetshop on March 28, 1991, killing two teenaged girls and one man, all Catholics. The attack is allegedly planned by Robin Jackson.
In the early 1990s, Billy Wright, also from Portadown, takes over command of the UVF Mid-Ulster Brigade from Jackson. The Mid-Ulster Brigade, founded in 1972 by its first commander, Billy Hanna, operates mainly in the Lurgan and Portadown areas. Fulton soon becomes Wright’s closest associate and right-hand man and has an “extreme fixation and obsession over Wright.” He even has an image of Wright tattooed over his heart.
Fulton is alleged to have perpetrated twelve sectarian killings in the 1990s, and reportedly is implicated in many other attacks. His victims are often questioned about their religion prior to their killings, and sometimes they are killed in front of their families. He is very violent and has a quick temper. Wright is the only person who is able to control him. A Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) detective who knows both of them says that whenever they are stopped by the police in the 1990s, Wright is “coolness personified,” while Fulton rage’s, shouts and makes threats.
The Mid-Ulster Brigade calls themselves the “Brat Pack,” which journalist Martin O’Hagan of the Sunday World altered to “Rat Pack.” After the nickname of “King Rat” is given to Wright by local Ulster Defence Association commander Robert John Kerr as a form of pub bantering, O’Hagan takes to describing Wright by that term. This soubriquet is thereafter used by the media, much to Wright’s fury. This leads him to issue threats against O’Hagan and all journalists who work for the newspaper. The unit initially welcomes the Combined Loyalist Military Command ceasefire in October 1994; however, things change drastically over the next few years.
Following the order given in August 1996 by the UVF’s Brigade Staff (Belfast leadership) for Wright and the Portadown unit of the Mid-Ulster Brigade to stand down, Fulton remains loyal to Wright and defies the order. This comes after the Mid-Ulster UVF’s killing of a Catholic taxi driver, Michael McGoldrick, while the UVF are on ceasefire. After Wright defies a UVF order to leave Northern Ireland, he forms the breakaway Loyalist Volunteer Force, taking the members of the officially-disbanded Portadown unit with him, including Fulton.
Fulton, as Wright’s deputy, assumes effective control of the LVF when Wright is sent to the Maze Prison in March 1997. When Wright is shot dead by the Irish National Liberation Army (INLA) in December 1997, in a prison van while being taken to the Maze’s visitor block, Fulton assumes control of the LVF. He is deeply affected by Wright’s death, and reportedly spends many nights alone by his grave. In May 1998, the LVF calls a ceasefire. It is accepted by the Northern Ireland Office six months later.
Fulton is arrested in 1998 after shooting at an off-duty soldier in Portadown. He is heavily intoxicated at the time and sentenced to four years imprisonment. While he is out on compassionate leave in early 1999, he allegedly organises the killing of Catholic lawyer Rosemary Nelson. During the Drumcree standoff, Nelson had represented the Catholic Portadown residents who opposed the Orange Order‘s march through the predominantly nationalist Garvaghy area. She is blown up by a car bomb on March 15, 1999, outside her home in Lurgan. The bomb is allegedly made by a man from the Belfast UDA but planted by Fulton’s associates acting on his orders.
Colin Port, the Deputy Chief Constable of Norfolk Constabulary who heads the investigation into Nelson’s death, says “without question” Fulton is the person who had masterminded her killing. Although he is back in prison at the time, he is excited when he hears the news of her death on the radio. He is linked to the killing by police informers but not forensics. It is also revealed that prior to his own death, Wright had threatened to kill Nelson in the belief she had defended Irish Republican Army (IRA) volunteers. Fulton is released from prison in April 2001.
On June 10, 2002, Fulton, who has been held on remand in HM Prison Maghaberry since December 2001, is found dead in his prison cell with a leather belt around his neck. He is found on his bed rather than hanging from the ceiling, leading to speculation that his death had been accidentally caused by autoerotic asphyxiation. Friends claim he had expressed suicidal thoughts due to both his failure to recover from his close friend Wright’s death, as well as his fears that he was suffering from stomach cancer. Some reports suggest his unstable mental state had seen him stand down as leader several weeks before his death, with the LVF’s power base transferred to Belfast. He was also afraid that rival loyalist inmates wished to kill him inside the prison.
At the time of his death, Fulton is awaiting trial, having been charged with conspiracy to murder Rodney Jennett, a member of a rival loyalist paramilitary organisation, in connection with an ongoing feud. He leaves behind his wife, Louise and two children, Lee and Alana. His funeral is attended by 500 mourners, including a number of senior loyalist paramilitaries, including Johnny Adair and John White, who act as pallbearers alongside Fulton’s brother Jim and son, Lee. After a service at St. Columba’s Parish Church, he is interred in Kernan Cemetery in Portadown.
In October 1964, during the general election campaign, a photo of McMillen is placed in the window of the election office in Divis Street flanked on one side by the Starry Plough flag and on the other by the tricolour. His campaign draws national attention after Ian Paisley demands that police remove the tricolour from McMillen’s election offices. The RUC raids the premises and confiscates the flag, sparking several days of rioting during which McMillen leads several thousand protesters in defiantly displaying the tricolour. He recalls the IRA gaining a “couple of dozen recruits” following the election, but he finishes at the bottom of the poll with 3,256 votes (6%). Around this time, he succeeds Billy McKee as the Officer commanding (OC) of the Belfast Brigade.
McMillen is keen to work for the unity of Protestant and Catholic workers. Roy Garland recalls that McMillan’s grandfather was master of an Orange lodge in Edinburgh and McMillan knew of that heritage and the meaning of the colours of the Irish flag. He prominently displays in his election offices a verse of a poem by John Frazier, a Presbyterian from County Offaly: “Till then the Orange lily be your badge my patriot brother. The everlasting green for me and we for one and other.”
In 1967, McMillen is involved in the formation of the Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association (NICRA) and is a member of a three-man committee which draws up the Association’s constitution. The NICRA’s peaceful activities result in violent opposition from many unionists, leading to fears that Catholic areas will come under attack. In May 1969, when asked at an IRA army council meeting by Ruairí Ó Brádaigh how many weapons the Belfast Brigade has for defensive operations, McMillen states they have only one pistol, a machine gun and some ammunition.
By August 14, 1969, serious rioting has broken out in Belfast and Catholic districts come under attack from both civilian unionists and the RUC. McMillen’s IRA command by this point still has only a limited number of weapons because the leadership in Dublin are reluctant to release guns. While he is involved in some armed actions on this day, he is widely blamed by those who established the Provisional IRA for the IRA’s failure to adequately defend Catholic neighbourhoods from Ulster loyalist attack. He is arrested and temporarily detained by the RUC on the morning of August 15 but is released shortly afterward.
McMillen’s role in the 1969 riots is very important within IRA circles, as it is one of the major factors contributing to the split in the movement in late 1969. In a June 1972 lecture organised by Official Sinn Féin in Dublin, he defends his conduct, stating that by 1969 the total membership of the Belfast IRA is approximately 120 men, and their armaments have increased to a grand total of 24 weapons, most of which are short-range pistols.
In September, McMillen calls a meeting of IRA commanders in Belfast. Billy McKee and several other republicans arrive at the meeting armed and demand McMillen’s resignation. He refuses, but many of those unhappy with his leadership break away and refuse to take orders from him or the Dublin IRA leadership. Most of them join the Provisional Irish Republican Army, when this group splits off from the IRA in December 1969. McMillen himself remains loyal to the IRA’s Dublin leadership, which becomes known as the Official IRA. The split rapidly develops into a bitter rivalry between the two groups. In April 1970, he is shot and wounded by Provisional IRA members in the Lower Falls area of Belfast.
In June 1970, McMillen’s Official IRA have their first major confrontation with the British Army, which had been deployed to Belfast in the previous year, in an incident known as the Falls Curfew. The British Army mounts an arms search in the Official IRA stronghold of the Lower Falls, where they are attacked with a grenade by Provisional IRA members. In response, the British flood the area with troops and declare a curfew. This leads to a three-day gun battle between 80 to 90 Official IRA members led by McMillen and up to 3,000 British troops. Five civilians are killed in the fighting and about 60 are wounded. In addition, 35 rifles, 6 machine guns, 14 shotguns, grenades, explosives and 21,000 rounds of ammunition, all belonging to the OIRA, are seized. McMillen blames the Provisionals for instigating the incident and then refusing to help the Officials against the British.
This ill-feeling eventually leads to an all-out feud between the republican factions in Belfast in March 1971. The Provisionals attempt to kill McMillen again, as well as his second-in-command, Jim Sullivan. In retaliation, McMillen has Charlie Hughes, a young PIRA member, killed. Tom Cahill, brother of leading Provisional Joe Cahill, is also shot and wounded. After these deaths, the two IRA factions in Belfast negotiate a ceasefire and direct their attention instead at the British Army.
When the Northern Ireland authorities introduce internment in August 1971, McMillen flees Belfast for Dundalk in the Republic of Ireland, where he remains for several months. During this time, the Official IRA carries out many attacks on the British Army and other targets in Northern Ireland. However, in April 1972, the organisation in Belfast is badly weakened by the death of their commander in the Markets area, Joe McCann. In May of that year, the Dublin leadership of the OIRA calls a ceasefire, a move which McMillen supports. Nevertheless, in the year after the ceasefire, his command kills seven British soldiers in what they term “retaliatory attacks.” McMillen serves on the Ard Chomhairle (leadership council) of Official Sinn Féin.
By 1974, a group of OIRA members around Seamus Costello are unhappy with the ceasefire. In December 1974, they break away from the Official movement, forming the Irish Republican Socialist Party (IRSP) and the Irish National Liberation Army (INLA). Some OIRA members under McMillen’s command, including the entire Divis Flats unit, defect to the new grouping. This provokes another intra-republican feud in Belfast. The feud begins with arms raids on OIRA dumps and beatings of their members by the INLA. McMillen, in response is accused of drawing up a “death list” of IRSP/INLA members and even of handing information on them over to the loyalist Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF).
The first killing comes on February 20, 1975, when the OIRA shoot dead an INLA member named Hugh Ferguson in west Belfast. A spate of shootings follows on both sides.
On April 28, 1975, McMillen is shot dead by INLA member Gerard Steenson, as he is shopping in a hardware shop on Spinner Street with his wife Mary. He is hit in the neck and dies at the scene. His killing is unauthorised and is condemned by INLA/IRSP leader Seamus Costello. Despite this, the OIRA tries to kill Costello on May 9, 1975, and eventually kills him two years later. McMillen’s death is a major blow to the OIRA in Belfast.
The assault focuses on the English fort which sits at a bridge on the River Blackwater, marking the border between Counties Tyrone and Armagh. It is built by Walter Devereux, 1st Earl of Essex, in 1575 as an outpost of English military strength in the heart of Gaelic Ulster, but also to secure the power of the main Irish ally in the region, Hugh O’Neill, Baron of Dungannon. The fort is composed of a square earthwork bawn “twelve score yards in circuit” reinforced by two bulwarks and punctuated with gun loops in its ramparts. In one corner stands a wooden tower, four stories tall, topped with a wooden walkway and a slate-covered building. It is accessed by two doors, one leading out onto the ramparts, another leading to a cellar. Each story has defensive firing loops, also known as spike holes. This tower overlooks a road and bridge across the river. At the other side of the river, on the Tyrone side, is a stone tower. The stone tower controls access to the bridge, as the road runs through it via large wooden doors.
Hugh O’Neill, Lord of Tyrone, is thought an ally of the English Crown and he is supported by the English authorities in Dublin as a counterweight to the power of other native lords in Ulster such as Turlough Lynagh O’Neill. However, encroachment by English authorities on the liberties of the native Irish lords in Ulster during the 1580s and early 1590s causes O’Neill to create an alliance of Irish lords, which look to throw off English rule with the help of Philip II of Spain. From April 1593, O’Neill orchestrates a proxy war against the English using Hugh Maguire, Lord of Fermanagh, and Hugh Roe O’Donnell, Lord of Tyrconnell. They engage the English in the west of Ulster while O’Neill, outwardly still loyal to the Crown, strengthens his power base in Ulster and subdues the Crown’s Irish allies in the north. The Irish lay siege to Enniskillen Castle and defeat an English force sent to relieve it.
O’Neill’s alliance is not limited to Ulster as he is allied to Fiach McHugh O’Byrne in Leinster. He has come under increasing pressure from Lord DeputyWilliam Russell‘s military expeditions into the Wicklow Mountains. In desperation, Fiach McHugh asks that Tyrone offer help or at least raid the northern Pale to draw Russell out of Wicklow. O’Neill requests a meeting with Russell to discuss how to proceed but this is dismissed by the Lord Deputy as a ploy to draw him out of O’Byrne’s lands. Therefore, to help O’Byrne, O’Neill makes his first open move against the Crown.
On the morning of Sunday, February 16, 1595, Art MacBaron O’Neill approaches the fort from the direction of Armagh with 40 men, escorting what appears to be two prisoners. As they cross the bridge one of the English warders notices the match cords of the Irishmen’s matchlock calivers are lit, a sign that they are ready to fire. The English open fire and MacBaron’s men force their way into the stone tower, but the English withdraw to the upper stories and prevent the Irish from taking the tower. Meanwhile, on the other side of the river, 200 Irish soldiers sweep over the earth ramparts and take the bawn. The English soldiers and their families retreat to the wooden tower. Defensive fire from within keeps the Irish back and twice the warders thwart MacBaron’s attempts to burn the position. Fifteen of MacBaron’s men are killed attempting to storm the towers, and eight more later die of their wounds. The stalemate lasts until five o’clock in the evening when MacBaron calls for a ceasefire. He offers the garrison terms for their surrender. The English, led by Edward Cornwall, are critically low on ammunition but still prevaricate until MacBaron threatens to burn the fort to the ground with all in it. The ward’s surrender is agreed and MacBaron guarantees their safe passage to Newry.
The loss of the fort is doubtless a military setback for the Crown, but of more significance is the presence of the Earl of Tyrone in person. According to the English commander, O’Neill arrives after the surrender and is outraged at the losses suffered in taking the fort and is angry that the defenders had not been executed. After the English soldiers and their families leave, O’Neill looks on as the bridge is demolished and the fort’s defence slighted. Up until this point there is no concrete proof that O’Neill was active in the attacks by Maguire and O’Donnell in the west of Ireland. Now there is indisputable proof that the Crown was at war with O’Neill.
(Pictured: The Blackwater Fort at present-day Blackwatertown in County Armagh, built by the Earl of Essex during a foray into Ulster in 1575 and captured and destroyed by the Irish in 1595. This pen and ink sketch measures 22½ by 16½ inches and is dated March 27, 1587.)
Jameson is born in Portadown to a ProtestantChurch of Ireland family in about 1953, one of five sons. He has a twin brother, Stuart. A former reservist in the Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) (1973-81), he works as a manager in the Jameson Group, a building firm which is a family-owned business. The building firm is regularly awarded government contracts to carry out work for the security forces and it is for this reason that his brother David loses a leg in a 1991 Provisional Irish Republican Army bombing attack. He is a member of the Orange Order‘s Drumherriff Star of Erin LOL 8 Portadown district.
It is not known exactly when Jameson becomes a member of the Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF) nor the leader of its Mid-Ulster Brigade. The Portadown unit of the Mid-Ulster Brigade had been officially stood down by the Brigade Staff in Belfast in August 1996 when it carried out an unauthorised sectarian killing while the UVF were on ceasefire. The Mid-Ulster Brigade’s commander at the time, Billy Wright, was expelled from the UVF. Wright brazenly defies a Combined Loyalist Military Command (CLMC) order to leave Northern Ireland or face execution by establishing the breakaway Loyalist Volunteer Force (LVF), taking most of the Portadown Mid-Ulster UVF with him. The units of the Mid-Ulster Brigade that remain loyal to the Brigade Staff continue to operate and Jameson becomes commander. He is said by The Guardian to be a “staunch supporter of the Good Friday Agreement.”
In the weeks prior to his killing, Jameson is in a violent street altercation with LVF member Muriel Gibson, whom he accuses of involvement in drugs and slaps forcefully in the face. This is followed by a fracas at the Portadown F.C. Social Club on December 27, 1999, where LVF members are commemorating the death of their comrade Billy Wright, shot and killed inside the Maze Prison by the Irish National Liberation Army (INLA) exactly two years previously. When he enters the club, several LVF men begin to push and jostle him and challenge him to a fight, telling him to hit them instead of women. Deeply offended, he leaves and soon returns with a UVF gang armed with pickaxe handles and baseball bats. In the violent brawl that ensues, twelve people, including three LVF prisoners out on Christmas parole, receive severe injuries. The LVF leaders subsequently make the decision that Jameson is to pay for the attack with his life.
One of the LVF members, who lives near Dungannon, gets in touch with a family of north Belfast loyalists who had been members of the UVF but who had left after Wright’s expulsion. From these former UVF members the LVF obtains the gun with which to shoot Jameson. On the evening of January 10, 2000, Jameson returns from work and drives his Isuzu Trooper jeep into the driveway outside his home on the Derrylettiff Road near Portadown. Waiting in ambush, a single gunman suddenly approaches from the passenger side of the parked jeep. Before Jameson can emerge from the vehicle and with the engine still running, the gunman opens fire through the window with a 9mm semi-automatic pistol, shooting Jameson five times in the head and chest. His assassin escapes to a nearby getaway car. He is rushed to Craigavon Area Hospital but dies of his wounds minutes after his arrival. The RUC immediately begins a murder inquiry. Within hours of the killing, the UVF Brigade Staff convene an emergency meeting at “the Eagle,” their headquarters on the Shankill Road, where they compile a list of all those they believe to be involved in Jameson’s death and plan their retaliation against the LVF.
Among those who condemn the killing is Northern Ireland’s First MinisterDavid Trimble who releases the following statement: “This is exactly the sort of thing we thought we had finally put behind us. I’m shocked by the news.”
Jameson’s funeral is held on January 13 at the Tartaraghan Parish Church and attended by several thousand mourners including Progressive Unionist Party (PUP) leaders David Ervine and Billy Hutchinson. Drumcree Orangeman Harold Gracey and Gary McMichael, the son of slain Ulster Defence Association (UDA) brigadier John McMichael, also attend as does local politicians representing the Ulster Unionist Party (UUP) and Democratic Unionist Party (DUP). The service is officiated by Reverend David Hilliard who speaks out against vengeance and describes Jameson as a “man admired and loved by many” and who “had been so cruelly murdered.” He is buried in the adjacent churchyard.
Despite Reverend Hilliard’s pleas and LVF leader Mark “Swinger” Fulton‘s claim that his organisation had nothing to do with Jameson’s shooting, the UVF/LVF feud intensifies. In the immediate aftermath members of Jameson’s family are filmed angrily defacing LVF murals in Portadown. A month after his killing, two Protestant teenagers, Andrew Robb (19) and David McIlwaine (18), are savagely beaten and repeatedly stabbed to death in a country lane outside Tandragee, County Armagh by a local UVF gang. The young men, believed to have been LVF members, are targeted by their UVF killers after they leave a nightclub together in search of a party. However, neither teenager is part of any paramilitary organisation and only Robb had tenuous links to the LVF. It is reported in the Belfast Telegraph that according to court hearings Robb had made disparaging remarks about Jameson’s death. Two of the UVF men, Stephen Leslie Brown and Noel Dillon, are infuriated by the comments and afterward Brown drives the victims to Druminure Road where he, Dillon and another man carry out the double killing. One of Jameson’s brothers, Bobby, is among the mourners at David McIlwaine’s funeral. The West Belfast Brigade of the Ulster Defence Association, whose brigadier Johnny Adair is close to the LVF, briefly becomes involved in the feud after Adair attends Andrew Robb’s funeral and joins LVF members at the Drumcree conflict. After the UVF track down Jameson’s killer to the Oldpark area of Belfast and attempt to shoot him, he is taken away under the protection of the West Belfast Brigade. The tit-for-tat killings continue intermittently until 2005 when the UVF makes a final assault against the LVF, leaving four members dead and the LVF leadership with no alternative but to order its military units to permanently disband.
Jameson’s family has persistently denied that he was a UVF member. They maintain that he was a vigilante who was murdered in retaliation for the firm stand he had taken against drug dealing in the Portadown area. The late PUP leader David Ervine expressed the same opinion the day after the killing by stating, “Mr. Jameson had been murdered by drug dealers masquerading as loyalists because he had been a bulwark in his community against dealers.” Ervine also described him as having been a “fine and honourable man, widely respected in the community.” Northern Ireland security sources, however, have repeatedly named Jameson as the Mid-Ulster UVF commander. He is listed as a UVF member in the CAIN: Sutton Index of Deaths, an online University of Ulster-sponsored project which chronicles the Northern Ireland conflict. It also emerges that for several days prior to his killing, he had been working at the BallykinlerBritish Army base. Immediately after his murder by the LVF, his family begins an anti-drug campaign in Portadown by putting up posters and handing out leaflets to passing motorists.
The two dead men, Seán South and Fergal O’Hanlon, are hailed as republican martyrs. Their funerals are attended by thousands of people and their lives immortalised in republican ballads.
The Brookeborough raid is the central action in the IRA’s border campaign of 1956-62, yet it is over and done within a matter of minutes. The aim is to unite Ireland by setting up “liberated zones” in Northern Ireland and overthrowing the Stormont government. The campaign is preceded by a series of raids carried out by republican splinter group Saor Uladh. An attack on Rosslea police station in County Fermanagh in November 1955 results in the death of Saor Uladh member Connie Green.
Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) officer Gordon Knowles finds himself on the sharp end of the assault as the republicans blow the front wall from the barracks. “I was blown right across the guard room,” he says. “The only thing I felt was like somebody hitting me in the back and that was the bullet going in through the left-hand side of the spine, round the back of the spine and lodging one inch from the back. They shone a torch in my face and said: ‘Oh, let’s go, he’s had it.'”
Knowles is lucky to be alive as medical staff discover thirteen bullet holes in his body. He recovers to resume his police career and still carries bullet splinters in his body to this day.
The Brookeborough raid, involving fourteen IRA men, is planned along identical lines to the Rosslea attack, with very different results. The IRA aims to explode a bomb in front of the police station and to seize RUC weapons.
Just two days previously, the police suffer their first death of the border campaign when Constable John Scally is killed in an attack on Derrylin barracks, another County Fermanagh border station.
Ahead of the Brookeborough attack, the men gather at the County Monaghan family home of Fergal O’Hanlon, who takes part in the raid. O’Hanlon’s sister Pádraigín Uí Mhurchadha describes the scene. “I remember Fergal, on the night, saying to my mother ‘These men, give them a good meal because there are faces here tonight you won’t see again.’ Now it turned out that he happened to be one of the men that she would not see again.”
The BBC has recently spoken to three of the IRA men involved the raid.
Micheal Kelly, now in his 80s, has never given an interview before about his role in the attack. “The objective was to attack the barracks, take their guns from them and if necessary, if we had the time and space, to actually destroy the barracks,” he says.
Phil O’Donoghue is also part of the IRA unit. Today, he is honorary president of the 32 County Sovereignty Movement, which is believed to be closely aligned to the Real IRA. He insists the Brookeborough operation was about taking arms rather than killing police officers. “We had strict orders – under no circumstances were we to take on the B Specials (Ulster Special Constabulary) or RUC. We were, if at all possible, to try and take their weapons but we were not in any way to attack them.”
The IRA men arrive in Brookeborough in a stolen tipper lorry, but the driver is unfamiliar with the village and stops in the wrong place. Paddy O’Regan, from Dublin, is in the back of the lorry. His job is to assist Seán South in operating a Bren light machine gun. “When the truck actually stopped, and I got up off the floor and looked over the side of the truck I was looking into a shop – no sign of a barracks.” It is the first in a series of errors – the bomb placed by the station door fails to explode.
Barry Flynn, who has written a history of the border campaign, says he saw Brookeborough as a kind of tragic fiasco. “It became like the Keystone Cops,” he says. “There were a number of grenades thrown at the police station when they found it. One bounced back underneath the lorry and actually damaged the lorry very badly.”
RUC Sgt. Kenneth Cordner is quick to react to the attack. The truck is eventually parked up close to the barracks, allowing Sgt. Cordner a clear field of fire from an upstairs window. Using a Sten sub-machine gun, he opens up with deadly effect on the IRA men below.
Paddy O’Regan is wounded in the ensuing firefight. “We started to return fire on the barracks,” he says. “And after a while I looked down and I saw Seán South lying flat on his face and I felt two thumps in my hip. I knew I was wounded but it didn’t hurt particularly bad. It’s just like somebody hit you a couple of digs and it was just my hips started going numb.”
The order is given to withdraw, according to ex-IRA man Micheal Kelly. “Fergal, the last thing I heard him say, ‘Oh, my legs, oh, my legs!’ He was shot in the legs and bled to death. Seán South, I would say, was dead at this stage.”
The attackers flee across the border leaving the two dead men at a remote farm building where they are found by police.
Bobbie Hanvey is a well-known broadcaster and photographer. In 1957 he is just twelve years old and living across the road from the Brookeborough barracks. He remembers hiding under a bed with two of his friends as the attack unfolded. “The bedroom lit up – it was like daylight with the flames coming out of the guns. That image and the sounds of those guns and that experience has stayed with me to the present day – I’ll never forget it.”
Historian Barry Flynn explains that the Brookeborough raid is also a symbolic moment for the republican movement. The lives of the dead IRA men are subsequently remembered in two famous ballads, “Seán South from Garryowen” and the “Patriot Game.”
“People were writing the songs and, regardless of what was going to happen in the rest of the campaign, the names of Seán South and Fergal O’Hanlon were there forever as the martyrs of Brookeborough”, says Flynn.
The border campaign never again reaches the intensity of the Brookeborough incident, but police officers and IRA men continue to die. The IRA calls a ceasefire in 1962. By then it is clear that its strategy for overthrowing the Stormont government has failed.
(From: “Brookeborough: Failed IRA attack and republican legend” by Robin Sheeran and Bernadette Allen, BBC News NI, http://www.bbc.com, February 22, 2019 | Pictured: Ex-IRA men Micheal Kelly, Phil O’Donoghue and Paddy O’Regan who have a role in the Brookeborough raid)
McKee joins Fianna Éireann in 1936. He is arrested following a raid on a Gaelic Athletic Association (GAA) club in 1938, being imprisoned in Crumlin Road Gaol for several months. Following his release from prison, he joins the Irish Republican Army (IRA) in 1939. During World War II, the IRA carries out a number of armed actions in Northern Ireland known as the Northern Campaign. He is arrested and imprisoned in Crumlin Road Gaol until 1946 for his role in this campaign. In 1956, the IRA embarks on another armed campaign against partition, known as the Border Campaign. He is again arrested and interned for the duration of the campaign. He is released in 1962.
As the 1960s proceed, McKee drifts away from the IRA. He grows very disillusioned with the organisation’s increasing emphasis on socialism and reformist politics over “armed struggle.” He is a devout Roman Catholic, who attends Mass daily. As a result, he is very uncomfortable with what he feels are “communist” ideas coming into the republican movement.
During the 1969 Northern Ireland riots, severe rioting breaks out in Belfast between Irish Catholicnationalists, Protestantloyalists, and the RUC. McKee is highly critical of the IRA’s failure to defend Catholic areas during these disturbances. On August 14, 1969, McKee, Joe Cahill and a number of other Irish Republican activists occupy houses at Kashmir Street, however, being poorly armed they fail to prevent Irish Catholics in Bombay Street and parts of Cupar Street and Kashmir Street being driven from their homes in the sectarian rioting that engulfs parts of the city. In the aftermath of the riots, he accuses Billy McMillen, the IRA’s Belfast commander, and the Dublin-based IRA leadership, of having failed to direct a clear course of action for the organization in civil disturbances. On September 22, 1969, he and a number of other IRA men arrive with weapons at a meeting called by McMillen and try to oust him as head of the Belfast IRA. They are unsuccessful but announce that they will no longer be taking orders from the IRA leadership in Dublin. In December 1969, the IRA splits into the Provisional IRA which is composed of traditional militarists like McKee, and the Official IRA which is composed of the remnants of the pre-split Marxist leadership and their followers. He sides with the Provisionals and joins the IRA Army Council in September 1970.
McKee becomes the first OC of the Provisional IRA Belfast Brigade. From the start, there is intermittent feuding between McKee’s men and his former comrades in the Official IRA, as they vie for control of nationalist areas. However, the Provisionals rapidly gain the upper hand, due to their projection of themselves as the most reliable defenders of the Catholic community.
McKee himself contributes greatly to this image by an action he undertakes on June 27, 1970, the Battle of St Matthew’s. Rioting breaks out in the Ardoyne area of north Belfast after an Orange Order parade, and three Protestants are killed in gun battles between the Provisional IRA and loyalists. In response, loyalists prepare to attack the vulnerable Catholic enclave of Short Strand in east Belfast. When McKee hears about this, he drives to Short Strand with some men and weapons and takes up position at St Matthew’s Church. In the ensuing five-hour gun battle, he is wounded and one of his men is killed, along with at least four Protestants.
On April 15, 1971, McKee, along with Proinsias Mac Airt, is arrested by the British Army when found in possession of a handgun. He is charged and convicted for possession of the weapon and imprisoned in Crumlin Road Gaol, and Joe Cahill takes over as OC of the Belfast Brigade.
In 1972, McKee leads a hunger strike protest in an effort to win recognition of IRA prisoners as political prisoners. Republicans who are interned already have special status, but those convicted of crimes do not. On June 19, the 35th day of hunger strike, he is close to death, William Whitelaw concedes Special Category Status (SCS) which, although not officially awarding political status, is tacit recognition of the political nature of the incarceration. Prisoners wear their own clothes, have no prison work, can receive one visit and food parcel per week and unlimited letters.
McKee is released on September 4, 1974, and resumes his position as OC of the Belfast Brigade. At this time the Provisional IRA calls a ceasefire, and he is involved, with Ruairí Ó Brádaigh, in secret peace talks in Derry with the Northern Ireland Office. He is also involved in talks with Protestant clergy in Feakle, County Clare, in December 1974, where he voices his desire to end the violence.
However, in the same period, McKee authorises a number of sectarian attacks on Protestants as well as renewed attacks on rival republicans in the Official IRA. For this he is heavily criticised by a group of Provisional IRA activists grouped around Gerry Adams.
A faction led by Adams manages to get McKee voted off the IRA Army Council in 1977, effectively forcing him out of the leadership of the organisation. His health suffers in this period, and he does not resume his IRA activities. He joins Republican Sinn Féin after a split in Sinn Féin in 1986. At age 89, reflecting on his involvement in the Republican cause he says, “From the time I was 15 until 65 I was in some way involved. I have had plenty of time since to think if I was right or I was wrong. I regret nothing.”
In later years McKee, Brendan Hughes and Tommy McKearney are critical of the Belfast Agreement and of the reformist politics of Sinn Féin. In 2016 he sends a message of support to the launch of the hardline new Republican party Saoradh, reportedly the political wing of the New IRA.
McKee dies in Belfast at the age of 97 on June 11, 2019. His funeral takes place on June 15, 2019, in west Belfast. His coffin is carried on a gun carriage. He is buried in Milltown Cemetery.
Blair urges Protestant waverers to keep the Good Friday Agreement alive and insists that IRA disarmament, which the pro-British unionists are demanding, is “part of the agreement.”
Britain says two monitors, former President of FinlandMartti Ahtisaari and South AfricanCyril Ramaphosa, have reported to the province’s disarmament commission. “We and the Irish government understand from the decommissioning commission that a second inspection of IRA dumps has now taken place, and they have received a report to that effect from President Ahtisaari and Mr. Ramaphosa,” a Northern Ireland Office statement says.
The IRA discloses the inspection, aimed to show that arms from its long anti-British war are no longer being used, as tension grows ahead of a crucial October 28 conference of the Protestant Ulster Unionist Party (UUP). “We specifically announced that we would repeat the inspection of a number of arms dumps by third parties to confirm that our weapons are secure,” the IRA says. “We now wish to confirm that this re-inspection has taken place and thank those involved for their co-operation.”
Ramaphosa and Ahtisaari first examine arms stockpiles in June 2000.
The IRA is observing a ceasefire following a 30-year war against British rule in Northern Ireland.
U.S. PresidentBill Clinton joins Britain and Ireland in applauding the IRA’s decision that it will permit a fresh look at some of its hidden arsenal.
However, as Blair arrives three bomb alerts underline the fragility of a peace that has been shaken by sporadic attacks by armed dissidents who oppose the 1998 Good Friday Agreement. A detective escapes injury when a bomb under his car fails to explode in a carpark at Antrim, north Belfast. A police spokesman blames Protestant “loyalistparamilitaries.” Army bomb experts also deal with two “suspicious objects” found in other parts of the province, police say.
Blair’s visit is seen as a bid to garner support for First MinisterDavid Trimble, who is under pressure from within his Ulster Unionist Party over his decision to share power with Sinn Féin, even though the IRA has not disarmed.
Blair appeals to unionists ahead of their conference not to squander the accord’s hard-won political advances. He warns that disarmament will be out of reach if the coalition falls. “This is the only way forward for the future. If the Executive collapses and the Assembly then collapses, which must automatically happen, you don’t have a process at all, you don’t have decommissioning,” he tells reporters.
Confirmation of the second inspection is seen as a lift for the peace process which might ease pressure on Trimble.
UUP hardliners on Saturday, October 28, plan to urge grassroots members to back their demand for Trimble to pull out of the ruling coalition by November 30 if the IRA has not disarmed by that time. However, Trimble, at a news conference, dismisses the five-week deadline as “a crude device.”
(From: “IRA confirms arms dump inspections,” CNN.com, October 26, 2000 | Pictured: David Trimble, Seamus Mallon and Tony Blair at Stormont. Photograph: Eric Luke/The Irish Times)
As part of the larger Congo Crisis (1960–1964), the siege of Jadotville begins on September 13, 1961, lasting for five days. While serving under the United Nations Operation in the Congo (Opération des Nations Unies au Congo, ONUC), a small contingent of the Irish Army‘s 35th Battalion, designated “A” Company, are besieged at the UN base near the mining town of Jadotville (modern-day Likasi) by Katangese forces loyal to the secessionist State of Katanga. The siege takes place during the seven-day escalation of hostilities between ONUC and Katangese forces during Operation Morthor. Although the contingent of 156 Irish soldiers repels attacks by a 3,000-strong Katangese force, they are eventually forced to surrender after running out of ammunition and water. “A” Company is subsequently held as prisoners of war for approximately one month, before being released on October 15 as part of a prisoner exchange. The Irish forces inflict approximately 1,300 casualties (including up to 300 killed) on the Katangan force, with no deaths amongst “A” Company.
On the morning of Wednesday, September 13, 1961, the soldiers stationed at Jadotville are informed of Operation Morthor by UN Headquarters at Elisabethville. At 07:40 twenty Katangese troops attack while many of the UN Irish troops of A Company are attending an open-air Mass. Expecting to take the men off-guard, the first attackers move in rapidly. However, they are spotted by an Irish sentry, and a warning shot by Private Billy Ready alerts the company to the threat. Ready is wounded in a later exchange of fire.
The paramilitary Katangese Gendarmerie, which is a combined force of mercenaries, Belgian settlers and local tribesmen, attack the Irish company. The attackers have a strength of 3,000–5,000 men – consisting of mostly Katangese and settlers, but with many Belgian, French and Rhodesian mercenaries armed with a mix of weapons. Additionally, these forces have limited air support from a Fouga CM.170 Magister trainer-light ground attack jet fitted with a pair of underwing bombs and twin 7.5 mm machine guns, which repeatedly attacks the UN position. The Irish soldiers are armed with personal weapons, several water-cooled Vickers machine guns, 60 mm mortars and two Irish-built Ford Mark VI armoured cars under the command of Lieutenant Kevin Knightly.
The Katangese attack in waves of 600 or so, preceded by bombardment from 81 mm mortars and a French 75mm field gun. The Irish Support Platoon of “A” Company knocks out most of the Katangese mortar and artillery positions, including the 75mm gun, with counter-battery fire from 60mm mortars. The fire from the UN Irish positions proves accurate and effective. Mercenary officers are reportedly observed shooting native gendarmes to stem the rout caused in Katangese lines.
The 500 Irish and Swedish UN troops based in Kamina, and Indian army Gurkhas make several attempts to relieve the besieged Irish soldiers. The supporting force of mercenaries beat back these efforts. They have been brought in by Moïse Tshombe, Katanga’s premier, whose secessionist government has been supported by Belgium.
Attempting to reach the besieged “A” Company, the relief column, named “Force Kane” after its commander Commandant John Kane, is stymied in a series of battles at a pinch point called the Lufira Bridge. It carries the Jadotville-to-Elisabethville Highway across the Lufira River. The Katangese forces dig in here and bring heavy and sustained ground and air fire onto the relief column, killing three Indian UN troops, injuring a number of Irish UN troops and ultimately forcing the column off the bridge. Additionally, during the effort to reach the trapped company, the Katanga forces set off charges on the railway bridge to impede potential relief efforts.
On September 14, the Katangan Fouga jet flies passes over the battlefield, dropping bombs that rendered the Company’s vehicles inert and cause injuries to Privates Tahaney and Gormley.
During the siege, the Irish radio to their headquarters: “We will hold out until our last bullet is spent. Could do with some whiskey.”
On September 16, a second attempt to reach the Irish Company is made but fails with another three Indian troops being killed and a further eight soldiers suffering injuries. The Katangese ask Commandant Pat Quinlan for a ceasefire, as their own forces have been seriously diminished. By this time their effective strength may have been reduced to 2,000 men. Later that same day, a ceasefire agreement is reached between Commandant Quinlan and the Burgomaster of the Katangan forces, enabling the Irish troops to re-supply with water. The Gendarmerie retreat from their positions surrounding the UN.
Quinlan lacks any clear direction or communication from his superiors, and the Katangese gradually infringe on the ceasefire agreement to undermine “A” Company’s position. With his position untenable, without any clear orders or promise of assistance, having run out of ammunition and food and being low on water, Quinlan accepts their second offer to surrender. On September 17, Quinlan meets with Katanga Minister Munongo, in which a formal written ceasefire and surrender agreement is made, which contains the proviso that the Irish Company will keep their weapons and be unharmed.
“A” Company, 35th Battalion, suffers five wounded in action during the siege. The Katangese suffered up to 300 killed, including 30 mercenaries and an indeterminate number of wounded, with figures ranging from 300 to 1,000.
The Irish soldiers are held as hostages for approximately one month, in an effort to extort terms of ceasefire that are embarrassing to the United Nations.
After being released, the troops are returned to their base in Elisabethville. Some weeks later, however, “A” Company finds itself in active combat again, this time with the support of Swedish UN troops. Eventually, they are reinforced with fresh troops from Ireland, their replacement being the 36th Battalion. After weeks of fighting and their six-month tour of duty now complete, “A” Company is rotated out of the battle zone and are home in Ireland that December.
In 2016, the Irish government awards a Presidential Unit Citation to “A” Company, the first in the State’s history. In October 2017, a plaque commemorating Quinlan is unveiled in his native County Kerry, by former TaoiseachEnda Kenny. The decision of the State to honour individually the soldiers of Jadotville or their next of kin is one of the last decisions taken by Kenny before he retires as Taoiseach in June 2017. They are presented with newly designed Siege of Jadotville Medals in Athlone on December 2, 2017.
(Pictured: No.3 Platoon, A Company, 35th Battalion, pose in front of a UN relief helicopter, September 17, 1961)
The Provisional IRA, officially known as the Irish Republican Army (Irish: Óglaigh na hÉireann) and informally as the Provos, is an Irish republicanparamilitary force that seeks to end British rule in Northern Ireland, facilitate Irish reunification and bring about an independent republic encompassing all of Ireland. It is the most active republican paramilitary group during the Troubles. It argues that the all-island Irish Republic continues to exist, and it sees itself as that state’s army, the sole legitimate successor to the original IRA from the Irish War of Independence (1919-21). It is designated a terrorist organisation in the United Kingdom and an unlawful organisation in the Republic of Ireland, both of whose authority it rejects.
The Provisional IRA emerges in December 1969, due to a split within the previous incarnation of the IRA and the broader Irish republican movement. It is initially the minority faction in the split compared to the Official IRA but becomes the dominant faction by 1972. The Troubles begin shortly before when a largely Catholic, nonviolent civil rights campaign is met with violence from both Ulster loyalists and the Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC), culminating in the August 1969 riots and deployment of British soldiers. The IRA initially focuses on defence of Catholic areas, but it begins an offensive campaign in 1970 that is aided by external sources, including Irish diaspora communities within the Anglosphere, and the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) and Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi. It uses guerrilla tactics against the British Army and RUC in both rural and urban areas and carries out a bombing campaign in Northern Ireland and England against military, political and economic targets, and British military targets in mainland Europe. They also target civilian contractors to the British security forces. The IRA’s armed campaign, primarily in Northern Ireland but also in England and mainland Europe, kills over 1,700 people, including roughly 1,000 members of the British security forces and 500–644 civilians.
The Provisional IRA issues the following statement to news media on the morning of July 19, 1997:
“On August 31, 1994, the leadership of Oglaigh na hEireann (Gaelic for Irish Republican Army) announced a complete cessation of military operations as our contribution to the search for a lasting peace.
After 17 months of cessation, in which the British government and the (pro-British Protestant) unionists blocked any possibility of real or inclusive negotiations, we reluctantly abandoned the cessation.
It is the root cause of division and conflict in our country. We want a permanent peace and therefore we are prepared to enhance the search for a democratic peace settlement through real and inclusive negotiations.
So, having assessed the current political situation, the leadership of Oglaigh na hEireann are announcing a complete cessation of military operations from 12 o’clock midday on Sunday the 20th, July 1997.
We have ordered the unequivocal restoration of the ceasefire of August 1994. All IRA units have been instructed accordingly.”
seamus dubhghaill 