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Tag Archives: John McMichael


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Birth of James Craig, Loyalist Paramilitary

James Pratt Craig, Northern Irish loyalist paramilitary during the Troubles in Northern Ireland, is born in Belfast on November 17, 1941.

Craig, known as Jim, grows up in an Ulster Protestant family on the Shankill Road. In the early 1970s, he, a former boxer, is sent to the HM Prison Maze for a criminal offence unrelated to paramilitary activities. While serving his sentence at the Maze he joins the Ulster Defence Association (UDA), and is asked by the organisation’s commander at the time, Charles Harding Smith, to take control of the UDA prisoners inside, on account of his reputation as a “hard man.”

After his release in 1976, Craig sets up a large protection racket and becomes the UDA’s chief fundraiser. By 1985, he has managed to blackmail and extort money from a number of construction firms, building sites, as well as pubs, clubs, and shops in Belfast and elsewhere in Northern Ireland, whose intimidated owners pay protection money out of fear of Craig and his associates. It is alleged that the UDA receives hundreds of thousands of pounds, some of which also find their way inside Craig’s pockets as part of his “commission.” He is acquitted on a firearm charge and Ulster Freedom Fighters (a cover name for the UDA) membership on March 18, 1982. In 1985, he is brought to court after a number of businessmen decide to testify against him, with the condition that their identities remained hidden. The case falls apart when Craig’s defence argues that his client’s rights were violated by the concealment of the witnesses’ identities.

Craig allegedly is involved in the double killing of a Catholic man and a Protestant man on the Shankill Road in 1977. The men, both colleagues, had entered a loyalist club and were later stabbed, shot and put into a car which was set on fire. By this time the UDA West Belfast Brigade no longer wants him in their ranks, as they claim they can no longer “afford him.” Craig, who is ordered to leave the Shankill Road, goes on to join forces with John McMichael’s South Belfast Brigade. In addition to being the principal fundraiser, he also sits on the UDA’s Inner Council. He usually travels in the company of his bodyguard, Artie Fee, a UDA member from the Shankill Road.

The rival Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF) carries out an investigation after it is rumoured Craig has been involved in the death of UVF major William Marchant, who is gunned down by Provisional Irish Republican Army gunmen from a passing car on the Shankill Road on April 28, 1987. Marchant is the third high-ranking UVF man to be killed by the IRA during the 1980s. Although their inquiries reveal that Craig had quarrelled with Marchant as well as Lenny Murphy and John Bingham prior to their killings, the UVF feel that there is not enough evidence to warrant an attack on such a powerful UDA figure as Craig.

In December 1987, when UDA South Belfast brigadier John McMichael is blown up by an IRA booby-trap car bomb outside his home in Lisburn‘s Hilden estate, it is believed that Craig had organised his death with the IRA. Allegedly Craig fears McMichael is about to expose his racketeering business, thus putting an end to his lucrative operation. McMichael reportedly sets up an inquiry and discovers that Craig is spending money on a lavish scale, going on holidays at least twice a year and indulging in a “champagne lifestyle.” At the same time, it is suggested that Craig has made certain deals with Irish republican paramilitary groups, dividing up the rackets in west Belfast, and he would be doing the IRA a favour by helping them to eliminate a high-profile loyalist such as McMichael. Craig has established links with republicans during his time in prison, and the profitable deals and exchanges of information between them ensures he will most likely not be a target for IRA assassination.

Craig is named as an extortionist in Central Television’s 1987 programme The Cook Report. He plans to sue the programme’s producers for libel. In January 1988, Jack Kielty (father of future television presenter Patrick Kielty), a building contractor from County Down who had promised to testify as a key witness against Craig, is murdered by the UDA. This killing is attributed to Craig, although it is never proven.

Craig is shot dead by two gunmen from the UDA in “The Castle Inn” (later called “The Bunch of Grapes”), a pub in Beersbridge Road, east Belfast on October 15, 1988, where he has been lured in the belief that there is to be a UDA meeting. He is playing pool in the pub at the time of his fatal shooting by the two men, both of whom are wearing boilersuits and ski masks and carrying automatic weapons. Upon spotting Craig they open fire, spraying the room with gunfire. Craig dies instantly. A bystander pensioner is also murdered in the attack, and four other bystanders are wounded by stray bullets. The UDA claims the killing is carried out due to Craig’s “treason” and involvement in John McMichael’s murder as they know he had provided the IRA with information to successfully carry out the assassination. They apologise for the unintentional death of the pensioner. Craig is not given a paramilitary funeral, and none of the UDA’s command attend it.


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The Killing of Richard Jameson, Businessman & Loyalist

Richard Jameson, Northern Irish businessman and loyalist, who serves as the leader of the paramilitary Ulster Volunteer Force‘s (UVF) Mid-Ulster Brigade, is killed on January 10, 2000, outside his home in Portadown, County Armagh, Northern Ireland, during a feud with the rival Loyalist Volunteer Force (LVF). Following his death, the feud between the UVF and LVF escalates into a series of retaliatory killings. These go on intermittently until the LVF disbands in 2005.

Jameson is born in Portadown to a Protestant Church 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 Minister David 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 Ballykinler British 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.


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Birth of Provisional IRA Member Seán Savage

sean-savage

Seán Savage, Provisional Irish Republican Army member who is shot dead by the British Army while attempting to plant a car bomb in Gibraltar, is born in Belfast on January 26, 1965.

Born into an Irish Republican family in the Kashmir area of Belfast, Savage is educated at St. Gall’s Primary School, and at St. Paul’s Secondary School in the Falls Road area of West Belfast.

In 1987 Savage and Daniel McCann shoot and kill two Royal Ulster Constabulary officers at Belfast docks. He is also the leader of an IRA attack that places a car bomb beneath the car of John McMichael, an Ulster loyalist paramilitary, in Lisburn in December 1987. McMichael dies of his injuries two hours after the blast.

In March 1988, Savage and McCann, along with another Provisional IRA member, Mairéad Farrell, are sent to the British overseas territory of Gibraltar to plant a bomb in the town area targeting a British Army band which parades weekly in front of The Convent, the official Governors’ residence. However, the British Government acquires information about the intended attack and specially dispatches a British Army detachment there to intercept it, in an operation that it code-names Operation Flavius.

On March 6, 1988 Savage, McCann and Farrell enter Gibraltar from across the Spanish border to carry out a reconnaissance of the target. Having conducted it, they are leaving Gibraltar on foot approaching the Spanish border in two separate parties, when Savage sees McCann and Farrell up ahead being confronted and shot dead by soldiers from the Special Air Service regiment. He turns around and flees, running back into Gibraltar town, closely pursued on foot by another SAS soldier. After a 300-yard chase the soldier catches up with Savage and shoots him dead beneath a beech tree in Smith Dorrien Avenue. Civilian witnesses to the incident state afterwards that Savage is repeatedly fired upon by the soldier that had run him down while he is lying on the ground seemingly incapacitated.

The IRA team is subsequently found to be unarmed at the time of their deaths. A hire car rented by them, converted into a car bomb containing 140 lbs. of Semtex, with a device timed to go off during the changing of the guard ceremony in Gibraltar, is found two days later by the Spanish Police, who had assisted the British Government in tracking the IRA team’s movements in its territory before it had entered Gibraltar.

The bodies of Savage, Farrell and McCann are repatriated to Northern Ireland, where a collective IRA-sponsored funeral is held for them on March 16, 1988 at the IRA plot in Milltown Cemetery in West Belfast. As the coffins are being lowered into the ground Michael Stone, an Ulster loyalist paramilitary, stages a single-handed attack upon the ceremony, throwing grenades and firing a handgun at mourners. The funeral immediately descends into chaos. One group of mourners pursues the retreating attacker, who continues to throw grenades and fire bullets, through the cemetery grounds. Three of the unarmed mourners are killed and scores are injured. Stone retreats onto the adjoining M1 motorway, where he is arrested.

A Gibraltar inquest into the deaths of Savage, McCann and Farrell concludes the three had been lawfully killed. In 1995, the European Court of Human Rights rules that the human rights of the three were infringed, and criticizes the British authorities for lack of control in the arrest operation. They also rule that the three had been engaged in an act of terrorism, and consequently dismissed unanimously the applicants’ claims for damages, for costs and expenses incurred in the Gibraltar Inquest and the remainder of the claims for just satisfaction.

A British television documentary, Death on the Rock (1988), is produced and broadcast about the failed IRA operation in Gibraltar, examining the details of the events, and raising doubts about aspects of the British Government’s statements about the circumstances of the shootings of the IRA team, and questioning whether excessive force had been used in the confrontation in line with persistent rumours in the British media at that time of a “Shoot to Kill” strategy being used against the Provisional IRA by the British Government.