Hughes is born in Bellaghy, County Londonderry, Northern Ireland, on February 28, 1956, into a republican family, the youngest of four brothers in a family of ten siblings. His father, Joseph, had been a member of the Irish Republican Army in the 1920s and one of his uncles had smuggled arms for the republican movement. This results in the Hughes family being targeted when internment is introduced in 1971, and his brother Oliver is interned for eight months without trial in Operation Demetrius. He leaves school at the age of 16 and starts work as an apprentice painter and decorator.
Hughes is returning from an evening out in Ardboe, County Tyrone, when he is stopped at an Ulster Defence Regiment (UDR) checkpoint. When the soldiers realise he comes from a republican family, he is badly beaten. His father encourages him to see a doctor and report the incident to the police, but he refuses, saying he “would get his own back on the people who did it, and their friends.”
Hughes initially joins the Official Irish Republican Army but leaves after the organisation declares a ceasefire in May 1972. He then joins up with Dominic McGlinchey, his cousin Thomas McElwee and Ian Milne, before the three decide to join the Provisional Irish Republican Army in 1973. He, Milne and McGlinchey take part in scores of IRA operations, including daylight attacks on Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) stations, bombings, and attacks on off-duty members of the RUC and UDR. Another IRA member describes the activities of Hughes:
“He led a life perpetually on the move, often moving on foot up to 20 miles during one night then sleeping during the day, either in fields and ditches or safe houses; a soldierly sight in his black beret and combat uniform and openly carrying a rifle, a handgun and several grenades as well as food rations.”
On April 18, 1977, Hughes, McGlinchey and Milne are travelling in a car near the town of Moneymore when an RUC patrol car carrying four officers signals them to stop. The IRA members attempt to escape by performing a U-turn but lose control of the car which ends up in a ditch. They abandon the car and open fire on the RUC patrol car, killing two officers and wounding another, before running off through the fields. A second RUC patrol comes under fire while attempting to prevent the men from fleeing, and despite a search operation by the RUC and British Army the IRA members escape. Following the Moneymore shootings, the RUC name Hughes as the most wanted man in Northern Ireland, and issue wanted posters with pictures of Hughes, Milne and McGlinchey. Milne is arrested in Lurgan, County Armagh, in August 1977, and McGlinchey later in the year in the Republic of Ireland.
Hughes is arrested on March 17, 1978, at Lisnamuck, near Maghera in County Londonderry, after an exchange of gunfire with the British Army the night before. British soldiers manning a covert observation post spot Hughes and another IRA volunteer approaching them wearing combat clothing with “Ireland” sewn on their jackets. Thinking they might be from the Ulster Defence Regiment, one of the soldiers stands up and calls to them. The IRA volunteers open fire on the British troops, who return fire. A soldier of the Special Air Service (SAS), Lance Corporal David Jones, is killed and another soldier wounded. Hughes is also wounded and is arrested nearby the next morning.
In February 1980, Hughes is sentenced to a total of 83 years in prison. He is tried for, and found guilty of, the murder of one British Army soldier (for which he receives a life sentence) and wounding of another (for which he receives 14 years) in the incident which leads to his arrest, as well as a series of gun and bomb attacks over a six-year period. Security sources describe him as “an absolute fanatic” and “a ruthless killer.” Fellow republicans describe him as “fearless and active.”
Hughes is involved in the mass hunger strike in 1980 and is the second prisoner to join the 1981 Irish Hunger Strike in the H-Blocks at the Long Kesh Detention Centre. His hunger strike begins on March 15, 1981, two weeks after Bobby Sands began his hunger strike. He is also the second striker to die, at 5:43 p.m. BST on May 12, after 59 days without food, refusing requests from the IRA leadership outside the prison to end the strike after the death of Sands. The journey of his body from the prison to the well-attended funeral near Bellaghy is marked by rioting as the hearse passes through loyalist areas. His death leads to an upsurge in rioting in nationalist areas of Northern Ireland.
Hughes’s cousin Thomas McElwee is the ninth hunger striker to die. Oliver Hughes, one of his brothers, is elected twice to Magherafelt District Council.
Brownlow’s father, grandfather, and great-grandfather had been MPs, and in 1753 he wins a hotly contested by-election in which his opponents accuse him of papist and Jacobite sympathies. The unsuccessful candidate is Francis Caulfeild, brother of James, 1st Earl of Charlemont, his petition to parliament causing a furor and is defeated by only one vote in one of the most celebrated electoral struggles of the day. Brownlow represents the county for over forty years, from 1753 until his death. In 1753, he supports the government on the controversial money bill.
Brownlow marries Judith, daughter of the Rev. Charles Meredyth, Dean of Ardfert, of County Meath, on May 25, 1754. They have two sons. After her death in Lyon, France, in October 1763, he marries Catherine, daughter of Roger Hall of Newry, County Down, on November 25, 1765. They have two sons and five daughters, three who marry into the nobility. In 1758, he is one of the Wide Streets commissioners in Dublin and owns an imposing house in Merrion Square. He is a trustee of the linen board in Ulster, and makes many improvements to his estate, castle, and demesne, the local church, and the town of Lurgan. However, it is alleged that private roads in his demesne were built with public money. He is one of a few landowners in County Armagh who are believed to have misappropriated the unusually high county cess levied by the grand jury, of which he is a member. In 1758, he suggests that salaries be paid to government officials, and one official, Henry Meredyth, his first wife’s uncle, subsequently receives an annual salary of £500.
In June 1763, large numbers of Presbyterian farmers and weavers, calling themselves the Hearts of Oak, in a notable show of dissatisfaction with the privileges of landlords, march on the homes of the gentry to demand redress. Brownlow is in England and avoids a confrontation. Despite the allegations of abuse of public money, he is generally recognised as one of the more independent and reform-minded MPs of the day. He captains a Volunteer troop of dragoons which march from Lurgan to assist Belfast after the French commander François Thurot lands at Carrickfergus in 1760. As one of the supporters of Henry Grattan, he is prominent in the Volunteer movement of the 1780s. He is captain of the Lurgan Volunteer company and lieutenant-colonel of the northern battalion and backs the movement in parliament until displeased by the Volunteer national convention (November 10 – December 2, 1783), which seeks franchise reform and seems to challenge the authority of the existing parliament.
Brownlow subscribes £9,000 to help found the Bank of Ireland in 1783, and in parliament on February 7, 1785, vigorously opposes William Pitt‘s proposals on Ireland’s commercial relations with England, seeing in them the danger that Ireland would become a “tributary nation.” He is appointed a privy councilor in 1765. He organises horse races in his locality and is a talented harpsichord player. After his death on October 28, 1794, the Belfast News Letter prints an unusually long and glowing tribute, expressing admiration for his “incorruptible integrity” and patriotism, as well as two poetic elegies. He is succeeded by his son William Brownlow.
(From: “Brownlow, William” by Linde Lunney, Dictionary of Irish Biography, http://www.dib.ie, October 2009 | Pictured: Portrait of the Right Honorable William Brownlow, oil on canvas by Gilbert Stuart, circa 1790)
Thomas George Farquhar Paterson, local historian, folklore collector and museum curator, is born on February 29, 1888, in or near Toronto, Ontario, Canada.
Paterson is the eldest child in a family of seven sons and one daughter born to John and Rachel (née Farquhar) Paterson. His parents had emigrated from County Armagh, in what is now Northern Ireland. Their first three children are born in Canada, but the family returns to Ireland in the early 1890s, to the family farm in Cornascreeb, five miles south of Portadown, County Armagh. Also known as George, he attends Aghory national school, and leaves at age 14 to be apprenticed to a grocer in Portadown. In 1911, he takes a position in Couser’s, the leading grocery and wine merchant’s business in Armagh. In time becoming the manager, he is acquainted with the local gentry and clergy.
However, the grocery trade is never Paterson’s main interest. From an early age, he is fascinated by the history and folklore of his native place. He becomes an expert on the genealogy of the gentry as well as of the farming families around Armagh, and also collects material on many aspects of Armagh life. His notebooks eventually contain well over a million words of notes on history, archaeology, dialect, folkways and natural history, as well as drawings and plans of traditional houses, fireside accoutrements and farm implements. His knowledge of history, archaeology and natural history is widely recognised, and in 1931 Armagh County Council asks him to become honorary curator of the small museum established by the Armagh Natural History and Philosophical Society. Four years later, he leaves Couser’s and becomes full-time curator of the museum, re-named the Armagh County Museum. He greatly augments and improves the collections, and in the late 1950s oversees the enlargement of the building. His life’s work culminates in the opening of the new building in 1962. He retires a year later at the age of 75.
Paterson’s work wins the respect of scholars, including Emyr Estyn Evans, a lifelong friend, and material that he records has been cited in a wide variety of books and journal articles. Over one hundred citations are listed in a posthumous bibliography in 1972, and since then hundreds of scholarly works have drawn on his published and unpublished material. His manuscripts are in Armagh County Museum, where they form an important resource.
Paterson publishes a book, Country Cracks: Old Tales from the County of Armagh (1939), and a very large number of articles in newspapers and journals, especially in Seanchas Ardmhacha, Ulster Journal of Archaeology and Ulster Folklife. He sometimes uses the pseudonym “Cornascreeb.” He greatly assists researchers interested in the Armagh background of Alexander Campbell and his father Thomas Campbell and is made an honorary member of the Disciples of Christ Historical Society, based in Nashville, Tennessee.
Paterson is a founder member of the committee that re-establishes the Ulster Journal of Archaeology. He is active in local history societies, and for many years is a member of the Ancient Monuments Advisory Council. He records many local sites for the register of ancient monuments. He is a member of the Northern Ireland committee of the National Trust and seeks to preserve Armagh’s architectural heritage and local industrial archaeology. He donates much important archive material to the Public Record Office of Northern Ireland. He describes and collects folk artefacts, at least thirty years before most academic historians are interested in such objects, and he is a foundation trustee of the Ulster Folk Museum in Cultra, County Down. He is also a member of the first board of the Institute of Irish Studies in Queen’s University Belfast (QUB), from 1965.
Membership of the Royal Irish Academy is an honour not often accorded to someone who has not had a university education, still less to someone who leaves school at the age of 14, but Paterson is elected MRIA in 1941. He is conferred with an honorary MA by QUB in 1944. His service on many public bodies is acknowledged by the award of an Order of the British Empire (OBE).
Paterson never marries and dies in Armagh on April 6, 1971. Hundreds of people contribute to a memorial fund. Some of the money subscribed is used to purchase nineteenth-century drawings for the county museum, and in 1975 the memorial committee also publishes Harvest home: the last sheaf: a selection from the writings of T. G. F. Paterson relating to County Armagh, edited by Emyr Estyn Evans.
Armstrong is born on January 12, 1924, at Carrickfergus, County Antrim, Northern Ireland, one of three sons among six children of James Charlton Armstrong, housepainter and decorator, and his wife Margaret (née Howard). Soon after his birth the family moves to Belfast. He attends Strandtown Primary School. He attends Queen’s University Belfast (QUB) in the early 1940s, where he initially studies political science and later architecture. Having an interest in art, which had been fostered by his father, he takes classes for a short time in the early 1940s at the Belfast School of Art. It is there he meets Gerard Dillon, who introduces him to George Campbell and Daniel O’Neill. He is largely self-taught as an artist. It is his close association with Dillon and Campbell, both some years his senior, that proves to be the most important factor in his development. In Belfast in the early 1940s they associate with the Russian artist Daniel Nietzche, who emphasises to them the importance of personal expression.
After leaving university Armstrong works at the Belfast Gas Office. At this point he is the main support for his widowed mother. Having saved some money, he leaves his job in 1946 to attempt to fulfil his ambition to paint full-time, producing a set of etchings with George Campbell, which are published by Walsh Studios. The following year he takes work as a designer for Ulster Laces in Portadown, County Armagh. In 1957, he leaves for London in the hopes of finding greater opportunities as an artist. His friends Campbell and Dillon are already living there, and he takes lodgings with Dillon’s sister at Abbey Road, north London. Though he continues to paint, he is unable to earn a living and so again has to take other work, this time in a Labour Exchange office. However, he is beginning to gain recognition. In 1957, he is awarded a traveling scholarship by the Council for the Encouragement of Music and the Arts (CEMA), which enables him to travel to Spain. He continues to visit Spain throughout the 1960s, often to see Campbell, who spends much time there.
In 1961 he has his first solo exhibition at the CEMA gallery in Belfast. He comes to live in Dublin in 1962, his work having already been exhibited there at the Irish Exhibition of Living Art in 1957 and 1958. He continues to exhibit there annually from 1961 to 1965. During the 1960s and early 1970s his work is regularly included in the Oireachtas exhibition, at which he is awarded the Douglas Hyde Gold Medal in 1968. He also shows his work with the Ritchie Hendriks Gallery and the Tom Caldwell Gallery in Dublin. Ultimately, he is to have over seventy solo exhibitions throughout his career. By 1969, when he is elected an associate member of the Royal Hibernian Academy (RHA), he has established himself as one of the leading landscape painters in Ireland. In 1972 he becomes a full member of the RHA. He exhibits there regularly until 1977.
It is during this period that some of Armstrong’s best work is produced. While landscape is his predominant theme, he never sees himself as a painter of particular views, rather he responds to the abstract qualities of a scene. He sees elements such as the sea, rocks or sky as a series of interlocking textures to be rendered expressively in oil paint. The western coastline of Ireland is a vital source of inspiration for him. Roundstone, County Galway, is a favoured base for painting trips in the company of Dillon and Campbell, who by this time are also living in Dublin.
In 1981, a retrospective exhibition of Armstrong’s work is organised by the Arts Council of Northern Ireland. He is represented in many major public and corporate collections in Ireland. From 1971 he lives at 28 Chelmsford Avenue, Ranelagh, Dublin, in a house he shares with Gerard Dillon.
Armstrong dies unmarried on January 13, 1996, in Dublin. The contents of his studio are sold on February 3, 1998.
(From: “Armstrong, Arthur” by Rebecca Minch, Dictionary of Irish Biography, http://www.dib.ie, October 2009, revised November 2013 | Pictured: “Near Ballyhubbock,” oil on board by Arthur Armstrong RHA)
Remaining active during the interwar years, Dill serves as chief assistant to the commandant of the Staff College (1919–22) before commanding the Welsh Border Brigade, TA (1922–23), and 2nd Infantry Brigade at Aldershot (1923–26). In late 1926, he is appointed army instructor at the newly established Imperial Defence College. A period in India follows as general staff officer of the Western Command (1929–31), based at Quetta. On return to England, he is promoted to major general and made commandant of the Staff College. Appointments as commander of the British forces in Palestine and Transjordan (1936–37) and the Aldershot Command (1937–39) follow. During this period, he shows a remarkable ability to both train and inspire those under his command. Most of his colleagues expect him to become the new chief of the Imperial General Staff and are surprised when Major General Lord Gort, junior to Dill in both rank and seniority, is appointed to the post.
At the outbreak of World War II Dill commands I CorpsBritish Expeditionary Force (BEF) in France and is made a full general. In April 1940, he is made vice-CIGS and in May takes over as CIGS. His initial period in office is not a happy one, and he has to inform the public of setbacks in both Norway and France. His workload is enormous, and after the evacuation at Dunkirk in late May he devotes himself to preparing the defences of Britain against invasion. He clashes with Winston Churchill throughout 1941, advocating a more cautious and realistic approach to the situations in North Africa, Greece, and Crete.
The workload begins to affect his health adversely, and in November 1941 it is announced that he will resign as CIGS on reaching the age of 60 and serve as governor-designate of Bombay with the rank of field marshal. He seeks to be more actively involved in the war effort, however, and in December 1941 he visits the United States with Churchill, remaining there as head of the British joint staff mission in Washington, D.C. He plays a significant role in promoting Anglo–American military cooperation and attends the Casablanca, Quebec, and Tehran conferences.
Dill first marries (1907) Ada Maud Le Mottée, daughter of Col. William Le Mottée of the 18th Regiment. Their son, Major John de Guerin Dill, serves as an artillery officer throughout World War II. In October 1941, Dill marries Nancy Isabelle Charrington, widow of Brigadier Denis Walter Furlong. Dill’s honours include a GCB (1942), an honorary degree from Princeton University (1944), the Howland Memorial Prize of Yale University (1944), and a posthumous Distinguished Service Medal (DSM) from the United States government. There are portraits of him in Cheltenham College and the Imperial War Museum, and a statue in Washington, D.C.
(From: “Dill, Sir John Greer” by David Murphy, Dictionary of Irish Biography, http://www.dib.ie, October 2009 | Pictured: Sir John Greer Dill, bromide print, 1932, by Walter Stoneman, National Portrait Gallery, London)
The Darkley killings or Darkley massacre is a gun attack carried out on November 20, 1983, near the village of Darkley, County Armagh, Northern Ireland. Three gunmen attack worshippers attending a church service at Mountain Lodge Pentecostal Church, killing three Protestant civilians and wounding seven. The attackers are rogue members of the Irish National Liberation Army (INLA). They claim responsibility using the cover name “Catholic Reaction Force,” saying it is retaliation for recent sectarian attacks on Catholics by the loyalist Protestant Action Force (PAF). The attack is condemned by INLA leadership.
In the months before the Darkley killings, several Catholic civilians are killed by loyalists. On October 29, 1983, a Catholic civilian member of the Workers’ Party, David Nocher (26), is shot dead in Belfast. On November 8, Catholic civilian Adrian Carroll (24) is shot dead in Armagh. Ulster Defence Regiment (UDR) personnel are later convicted but the convictions are cleared on appeal for three of them (see UDR Four case). Carroll is the brother of an INLA member who was killed a year earlier. These attacks are claimed by the Protestant Action Force, a cover name used mostly by members of the Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF). It is believed the Darkley killings are primarily a retaliation for the killing of Carroll.
On the evening of Sunday, November 20, about sixty people are attending a church service at Mountain Lodge Pentecostal Church. The small, isolated wooden church is outside the village of Darkley, near the border with the Republic of Ireland and several miles from Armagh. As the service begins, three masked gunmen arrive, at least one of whom is armed with a Ruger semi-automatic rifle, and open fire on those standing in the entrance. Three church elders are killed: Harold Browne (59), Victor Cunningham (39) and David Wilson (44). The fatally wounded Wilson staggers into the service, where he collapses and dies. The gunmen then stand outside the building and spray it with bullets, wounding an additional seven people before fleeing in a car. The service is being tape-recorded when the attack takes place. On the tape, the congregation can be heard singing the hymn “Are You Washed in the Blood of the Lamb,” followed by the sound of gunfire. All of the victims are Protestant civilians.
In a telephone call to a journalist, a caller claims responsibility for the attack on behalf of the “Catholic Reaction Force.” He says it is “retaliation for the murderous sectarian campaign carried out by the Protestant Action Force” and adds, “By this token retaliation we could easily have taken the lives of at least 20 more innocent Protestants. We serve notice on the PAF to call an immediate halt to their vicious indiscriminate campaign against innocent Catholics, or we will make the Darkley killings look like a picnic.” The caller names nine Catholics who had been attacked.
The name “Catholic Reaction Force” had never been used before and police say they believe the attack is carried out by members of the INLA. The INLA condemn the attack and deny direct involvement, but say it is investigating the involvement of INLA members or weapons. A week later, INLA leader Dominic McGlinchey admits that one of the gunmen had been an INLA member and admits supplying him with the gun but says there is no justification for the attack. The INLA member’s brother had been killed by loyalists. McGlinchey explains that the INLA member had asked him for a gun to shoot a known loyalist who had been involved in sectarian killings. However, “clearly deranged by the death of his brother,” he “used it instead to attack the Darkley Gospel Hall.” McGlinchey says, “he must have been unbalanced or something to have gone and organised this killing. We are conducting an inquiry.”
There are reprisal sectarian attacks on Catholics in North Belfast, Lisburn, and Portadown within 24 hours of the Darkley massacre. On December 5, fifteen days after the Darkley attack, the PAF shoot dead INLA member Joseph Craven (26) in Newtownabbey.
The name “Catholic Reaction Force” is used several other times. In August 1984, it is used to issue a threat to newspapers against the families of Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) officers, after Sean Downes, a Catholic man, dies after the RUC shot him with a plastic bullet during an anti-internment march on the Andersontown Road, Belfast. In May 1986, it is used to claim the killing of Protestant civilian David Wilson (39), who is shot while driving his firm’s van in Donaghmore. The Irish Republican Army (IRA) also claims responsibility, saying Wilson was a member of the UDR. The “Catholic Reaction Force” declares a ceasefire on October 28, 1994. In 2001, the name is used to claim two attacks on homes in which there are no injuries, and in 2002 is used to issue a threat to hospital workers suspected of links to the security forces.
(Pictured: The Mountain Lodge Pentecostal Church at Aughnagurgan outside Darkley, County Armagh, Northern Ireland)
James Green Douglas, Irish businessman and politician dies on September 16, 1954. In 1922 he serves as the first-ever Leas-Chathaoirleach (deputy chairperson) of Seanad Éireann, the upper house of the newly independent Irish parliament. He goes on to serve in the Seanad for 30 years.
Douglas is born July 11, 1887, at 19 Brighton Square, Dublin, the eldest of nine children of John Douglas, proprietor of John Douglas & Sons Ltd, drapers and outfitters of Wexford St. and originally of Grange, County Tyrone, and his wife, Emily, daughter of John and Mary Mitton of Gortin, Coalisland, County Tyrone. The genealogy of the Douglas family to which he belongs can be traced to Samuel Douglas of Coolhill, Killyman, County Tyrone.
Douglas attends (1895–98) a small school for Quaker children and is a boarder (1898–1902) in the Friends’ School, Lisburn. In 1902 he begins a three-year apprenticeship in his father’s business.
On February 14, 1911, Douglas marries Georgina (Ena) Culley (1883–1959), originally of Tirsogue, Lurgan, County Armagh, whom he meets during his apprenticeship. Their children are John Harold Douglas, who succeeds to the family busines and replaces his father as senator, and James Arthur Douglas, who becomes a well-known architect.
From an early age Douglas is fascinated by politics and influenced by the newspapers edited by Arthur Griffith. He becomes a member of the Dublin Liberal Association, whose members for the most part are Protestanthome rulers. After the 1916 Easter Rising, with George Russell and others, who also regard themselves as neither unionists nor nationalists, he sets out to promote what they term “full dominion status” for Ireland. This paves the way for the Irish Convention (1917–18), which, however, fails to reconcile the polarised political attitudes of the time.
Douglas goes on to become a very active member of Seanad Éireann between 1922 and 1936 under the constitution he had helped to prepare. In 1922, he is elected as the first vice-chairman of the Senate. The Senate is abolished in 1936 and re-established under the terms of the 1937 Constitution of Ireland. He is again an active Senator between 1938 and 1943, and from 1944 to 1954. The topics most associated with him during his work as Senator are international refugees and the League of Nations.
For some thirty years he runs the family business, and is also a director of Aspro (Ireland) Ltd, Nugent & Cooper Ltd, Philips Lamps (Ireland) Ltd, and the Greenmount & Boyne Linen Co. Ltd. In addition, he serves as president of the Linen and Cotton Textile Manufacturers Association and as a member of the council of the Federated Union of Employers.
Accused by The Sunday Times of directing an IRA bombing campaign in Britain, in 1987 Murphy unsuccessfully sues the paper for libel in Dublin. The original verdict is overturned by the court of appeal because of omissions in the judge’s summing up and there is a retrial, which he also loses. At the retrial, both Sean O’Callaghan and Eamon Collins, former members of the Provisional Irish Republican Army, testify against Murphy, as do members of the Gardaí, Irish customs officials, British Army and local TDBrendan McGahon. Collins, who had also written a book about his experiences, Killing Rage, is beaten and killed by having a spike driven through his face near his home in Newry eight months later. In 1998, a Dublin court dismisses Murphy’s case after a high-profile trial, during which Murphy states that he has “never been a member of the IRA, no way” and claims not to know where the Maze prison is located. The jury rules, however, that he is an IRA commander and a smuggler.
The Sunday Times subsequently publishes statements given by Adrian Hopkins, the skipper who ferries weapons from Libya to the IRA, to the French authorities who intercept the fifth and final Eksund shipment. Hopkins details how Murphy met a named Libyan agent in Greece, paid for the weapons to be imported, and helped unload them when they arrived in Ireland. According to A Secret History of the IRA by Ed Moloney, Murphy has been the IRA Army Council’s chief of staff since 1997. Toby Harnden’s Bandit Country: The IRA & South Armagh also details Murphy’s IRA involvement.
On September 20, 2016, the BBC‘s Spotlight airs a programme in which an alleged British spy who had infiltrated the IRA claims that in 2006, Murphy had demanded the killing of Denis Donaldson, an IRA member and British informer, in order to maintain discipline. The BBC says it had tried to contact Murphy but had received no reply. He has yet to respond to the allegation. On September 23, 2016, the Donaldson family’s solicitor says that the allegation is “absolute nonsense.”
In October 2005, officers of the British Assets Recovery Agency and the Irish Criminal Assets Bureau carry out raids on a number of businesses in Manchester and Dundalk. It is extensively reported in the media that the investigation is aimed at damaging the suspected multi-million-pound empire of Murphy, who according to the BBC’s Underworld Rich List, has accumulated up to £40 million through smuggling oil, cigarettes, grain and pigs, as well as through silent or partial ownership in legitimate businesses and in property.
A large, purpose-built underground chamber that Gardaí believes the IRA used for interrogation is discovered close to Murphy’s home.
In his first-ever press release, issued on October 12, 2005, Murphy denies he owned any property and denies that he had any links with co-accused Cheshire businessman Dermot Craven. Furthermore, he claims that he had to sell property to cover his legal fees after his failed libel case against The Sunday Times, and that he made a living from farming.
On March 9, 2006, police, soldiers and customs officials from both sides of the Irish border launch a large dawn raid on Murphy’s house and several other buildings in the border region. Three persons are arrested by the Gardaí, but are released three days later. A fleet of tankers, computers, documents, two shotguns, more than 30,000 cigarettes and the equivalent of 800,000 euros in sterling bank notes, euro bank notes and cheques are seized. Four diesel laundering facilities attached to a major network of storage tanks, some of which are underground, are also found. The Irish Criminal Assets Bureau later obtains seizure orders to take possession of euro cash and cheques and sterling cash and cheques, together worth around one million Euros.
Sinn Féin President Gerry Adams makes a public statement in support of Murphy following the March 2006 raids. Under political and media pressure over allegations of the IRA’s continued presence in South Armagh, Adams says, “Tom Murphy is not a criminal. He’s a good republican and I read his statement after the Manchester raids and I believe what he says and also and very importantly he is a key supporter of Sinn Féin’s peace strategy and has been for a very long time.” He adds, “I want to deal with what is an effort to portray Tom Murphy as a criminal, as a bandit, as a gang boss, as someone who is exploiting the republican struggle for his own ends, as a multimillionaire. There is no evidence to support any of that.”
Murphy is arrested in Dundalk, County Louth, on November 7, 2007, by detectives from the Criminal Assets Bureau, on charges relating to alleged revenue offences. The following day, he is charged with tax evasion under the Tax Consolidation Act. He is later released on his own bail of €20,000 with an independent surety of €50,000.
On October 17, 2008, in an agreed legal settlement, Murphy and his brothers pay over £1 million in assets and cash to the authorities in Britain and the Republic in settlement of a global crime and fraud investigation relating to proceeds of crime associated with smuggling and money laundering. After an investigation involving the Irish Criminal Assets Bureau and the UK’s Serious Organised Crime Agency, more than 625,000 euros (£487, 000) in cash and cheques is confiscated by the Republic’s courts, while nine properties in North West England worth £445,000 are confiscated by British courts. Murphy is still fighting a claim in the Republic’s courts for tax evasion, relating to non-completion of tax returns for eight years from 1996. On April 26, 2010, he is further remanded on bail.
In 2011, there are claims that Murphy had become disillusioned with the Northern Ireland peace process and that he had fallen out with Sinn Féin. However, there is no evidence to support he is sympathetic to any dissident republican groups. In March 2013, the Garda and the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI), along with members of the Irish Customs Authority and HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC), raid his farm on the Louth-Armagh border. The Sunday World reports that two hours prior to the raid, at approximately 4:00 a.m., fire is seen coming from Murphy’s yard. There are serious concerns within the Garda and PSNI that a mole may have tipped off Murphy about the raid hours earlier as laptops, computer disks and a large amount of documentation is destroyed in the fires. As a result, an internal Garda investigation takes place.
On December 17, 2015, Murphy is found guilty on nine charges of tax evasion by a three-judge, non-jury Special Criminal Court trial sitting in Dublin, lasting nine weeks. He is tried under anti-terrorist legislation due to the belief by the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) that there would not be a fair trial because of the potential of the intimidation of prosecution witnesses and jurors, and the security surrounding the trial.
Murphy is found guilty on all charges of failing to furnish tax returns on his income as a “cattle farmer” between 1996 and 2004. He is prosecuted following a 14-year-long Criminal Assets Bureau investigation, which during a raid of his property uncovers bags with more than €250,000 and more than £111,000 sterling in cash, along with documents, diaries and ledgers. He is remanded on bail until early 2016 for sentencing.
On February 26, 2016, Murphy is sentenced to 18 months in prison. None of the jail term is suspended. Following sentencing, he is immediately transferred from court to Ireland’s highest-security prison, Portlaoise Prison, reserved for terrorists, dissident republicans and serious gangland criminals, under a heavily armed Garda and Irish Army escort due to security concerns.
Murphy appeals the conviction in November 2016. His lawyer, John Kearney, claims that the tax Murphy had not paid had in fact been paid by his brother, Patrick. The Court of Appeal dismisses the appeal on all grounds in January 2017.
Murphy is an active Irish republican paramilitary from his late teens. In March 1972, he is arrested in Dundalk regarding an assault and is sentenced to two years in prison after the Garda Síochána find a loaded revolver in his car. He is imprisoned in the Curragh Camp but escapes in October 1972, and is not recaptured until May 1973. In June 1976, he is imprisoned again, receiving a three-year sentence for firearms offences and a one-year sentence for Provisional Irish Republican Army membership, both sentences to run concurrently. In July 1983, he is arrested in the United States after attempting to buy a consignment of M60 machine guns to be shipped to Ireland for use by the Irish National Liberation Army (INLA). He receives a five-year prison sentence but returns to Ireland in December 1985 after being released early.
In the late 1980s, Murphy begins investing in property and forms a company named Emerald Enterprises in 1990. He purchases the Emerald Bar public house in Dundalk for IR£100,000, and it later becomes a meeting place for dissident republicans. Other investments included 30 acres of land in Drogheda bought for IR£52,000 in 1995, and his company wins contracts for an IR£11 million development at Dublin City University (DCU) and the multi-million pound International Financial Services Centre in the Dublin Docklands.
Murphy is arrested by the Gardaí on February 21, 1999 for questioning under anti-terrorist legislation. On February 24, he becomes the first person to be charged in connection with the Omagh bombing, when he appears before Dublin‘s Special Criminal Court and is charged with conspiring to cause an explosion under the terms of Ireland’s Offences Against the State Act, between August 13-16, 1998. He is also charged with membership in an illegal organisation, the Real Irish Republican Army (RIRA).
On October 10, 2000, the BBC television show Panorama names Murphy as one of four people connected with the Omagh bombing, along with Seamus Daly and Liam Campbell. In 2001, he undertakes legal action against the BBC and Daily Mail publishers Associated Newspapers for contempt of court. The action against Associated Newspapers is settled on July 31, 2001, and the newspaper releases a statement saying Murphy is entitled to be presumed innocent of the charges against him until proven guilty.
Murphy’s trial begins at Special Criminal Court in Dublin on October 12, 2001. The court hears that Murphy had supplied two mobile phones which were used during the bombing. One witness, Murphy’s second cousin, retracts his evidence and the judge calls the conduct of two detectives outrageous, saying they had persistently lied under cross-examination. Despite this, on January 22, 2002, he is convicted of conspiring to cause the Omagh bombing, and on January 25 is sentenced to 14 years imprisonment with the judge describing him as a long-time republican extremist.
On January 21, 2005, Murphy’s conviction is overturned and a new trial ordered, due to the invasion of Murphy’s presumption of innocence, and alteration of Gardaí interview notes and evidence presented by two officers. A week later, his legal case against the BBC is resolved, with the BBC issuing a statement that Murphy “was fully entitled to maintain his innocence of the charges against him and to test the evidence against him at his trial.”
On October 23, 2006, two Gardaí officers are found not guilty of perjuring themselves during Murphy’s trial. On May 23, 2007, it is announced that Murphy is suffering from short-term memory loss resulting from a car accident in 1988. His lawyers attempt to prevent a retrial taking place, on the grounds that his condition interferes with his right to a fair hearing. The Court of Criminal Appeal is scheduled to hear his case again in October 2008. Following a retrial held in January 2010, he is acquitted on February 24, 2010.
In 2009, Murphy is one of four men found by a civil court to be liable for the Omagh bombing in a case taken by relatives of the victims. On July 7, 2011, in Belfast High Court, Lord Justice Malachy Higgins directs a retrial of the civil claims against Murphy. He questions evidence surrounding emails from U.S. undercover agent David Rupert while overturning the judgment on Murphy. The paucity of the email evidence, the lack of consistency in the emails or at least ambiguity, the possibility of initials referring to someone other than Murphy and the fact that they refer on occasions to double hearsay considerably weaken the emails as evidence, he says. Following a civil retrial on March 20, 2013, Murphy and Seamus Daly are found liable for involvement in the bombing.
Armstrong is the second surviving son of William Jones Wright Armstrong of County Armagh and Frances Elizabeth, widow of Sir Michael McCreagh, and daughter of Major Christopher Wilson. He is educated at The Royal School, Armagh and Trinity College, Cambridge, gaining a BA (2nd Class Law Tripos) in 1867 and an MA in 1870. Admitted at the Inner Temple in 1866, he is called to the Bar in 1868.
In 1883, Armstrong marries Margaret Leader, daughter of William Leader of Rosnalea, County Cork. They have five sons and three daughters, of whom C. W. Armstrong also becomes a politician.
Armstrong is returned unopposed to the House of Commons of the United Kingdom for Mid Armagh in a by-election in 1921, at the advanced age of 76, becoming one of the oldest first-time MPs whose birth date is recorded. Certainly, he immediately becomes the oldest member of the current House of Commons. He is a Senator of Northern Ireland from 1921 to 1937, and Lord Lieutenant of Armagh from 1924 to 1939. For 25 years he is a member of the Representative Body of the Church of Ireland. He is Chairman of the County Armagh Education Committee from 1925 to 1931, and President of the Association of Education Committees of Northern Ireland. In 1932 he is made a Privy Councillor for Northern Ireland, and in 1938 he serves as a Justice for the Government of Northern Ireland in the absence of the Governor.
Armstrong dies at the age of 99 on December 4, 1943, at his home in Dean’s Hill, County Armagh.
seamus dubhghaill 