Although nobody is ever charged in connection with the killings, it is widely believed by nationalists and much of the press that the attack had been planned and led by Billy Wright, the leader of the Mid-Ulster Brigade’s Portadown unit. Wright himself takes credit for this and boasts to The Guardian newspaper, “I would look back and say Cappagh was probably our best,” though some sources are sceptical about his claim.
On the evening of Sunday, March 3, 1991, a unit of the UVF’s Mid-Ulster Brigade drive into the heartland of the East Tyrone IRA, intent on wiping out an entire IRA unit that is based in the County Tyrone village of Cappagh. One team of the UVF men wait outside Boyle’s Bar, while a second team waits on the outskirts of the town. At 10:30 p.m. a car pulls into the car park outside the bar and the UVF gunmen open fire with vz. 58assault rifles, killing Provisional IRA volunteers John Quinn (23), Dwayne O’Donnell (17) and Malcolm Nugent (20). The victims and car are riddled with bullets. According to author Thomas G. Mitchell, Quinn, O’Donnell and Nugent are part of an IRA active service unit (ASU). The gunmen then attempt to enter the pub but are unable to after the civilians inside realise what is happening and barricade the door. Unable to get into the bar, a UVF gunman shoots through a high open toilet window killing local civilian, Thomas Armstrong (50) and badly wounding a 21-year-old man. Their intended target, IRA commander Brian Arthurs, escapes with his life by crouching behind the bar during the shooting. According to the Conflict Archive on the Internet (CAIN), the three IRA volunteers chose to go to the pub “on the spur of the moment,” thus are unlikely to be the UVF’s original target.
After the attack, the UVF issues a statement: “This was not a sectarian attack on the Catholic community, but was an operation directed at the very roots of the Provisional IRA command structure in the Armagh–Tyrone area.” The statement concludes with the promise that “if the Provisional IRA were to cease its campaign of terror, the Ulster Volunteer Force would no longer deem it necessary to continue with their military operations.” Privately the UVF are hugely pleased with the attack in a republican heartland and Billy Wright, leader of the Portadown unit of the UVF’s Mid-Ulster Brigade, who is alleged to be centrally involved, tells Jim Cusack and Henry McDonald the killings were “one of things we did militarily in thirty years. We proved we could take the war to the Provos in one of their strongest areas.” Cusack and McDonald assert that a wealthy UVF supporter with a business in South Belfast helped the UVF purchase the cars used in the attack at auctions in the city.
The Provisional IRA initially does not acknowledge that three of the victims are within its ranks, apparently with the aim of garnering sympathy from the wider world, particularly in the Republic of Ireland, toward nationalists in Northern Ireland.
The first reprisal takes place on April 9, 1991, when alleged UVF member Derek Ferguson, a cousin of local MP Reverend William McCrea, is shot and killed in Coagh by members of the East Tyrone Brigade. His family denies any paramilitary links. In the months following the 1991 shootings, two former UDR soldiers are killed by the IRA near Cappagh. One of them is shot dead while driving along Altmore Road on August 5, 1991. The other former soldier is blown up by an IRA bomb planted inside his car at Kildress on April 25, 1993. It is claimed that he has loyalist paramilitary connections. The 1993 bombing leads to allegations that the IRA is killing Protestant landowners in Tyrone and Fermanagh in an orchestrated campaign to drive Protestants out of the region. There are at least five botched IRA attempts against the life of Billy Wright before the Irish National Liberation Army (INLA) succeeds in killing him in 1997 inside the Maze Prison.
This is not the first time the UVF carries out an attack on Boyle’s Bar in Cappagh. On January 17, 1974, at around 7:40 p.m. two masked UVF gunmen enter the pub and open fire indiscriminately on the customers with a Sterling submachine gun and a Smith & Wessonrevolver, firing at least 35 shots. A Catholic civilian and retired farmer Daniel Hughes (73) is shot eleven times and killed in the attack and three other people are injured. A group calling itself the “Donaghmore-Pomeroy Battalion of the UVF” claim responsibility for the shooting. The attack is linked to the notorious Glenanne gang.
(Pictured: The scene of the UVF attack outside Boyle’s Bar in Cappagh in March 1991. Photo: Pacemaker Archive Belfast 153-91-BW)
The Tandragee killings take place in the early hours of Saturday, February 19, 2000, on an isolated country road outside Tandragee, County Armagh, Northern Ireland. Two young Protestant men, Andrew Robb and David McIlwaine, are beaten and repeatedly stabbed to death in what is part of a Loyalist feud between the Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF) and their rivals, the breakaway Loyalist Volunteer Force (LVF). The men are not members of any loyalist paramilitary organisation. It later emerges in court hearings that Robb had made disparaging remarks about the killing of UVF Mid-Ulster Brigade leader Richard Jameson by an LVF gunman the previous month. This had angered the killers, themselves members of the Mid-Ulster UVF, and in retaliation they lure the two men to the remote lane on the outskirts of town, where they kill and mutilate them. The UVF’s Brigade Staff (Belfast leadership) does not sanction the killings.
The origins of the lethal 2000–01 loyalist feud which erupts between the UVF and the LVF begins when a brawl breaks out in the Portadown F.C. Society Club on December 27, 1999. The leader of the UVF Mid-Ulster Brigade, Richard Jameson, is jostled and insulted by members of the LVF who are holding a celebration at the club to commemorate the second anniversary of the shooting death of their former leader and founder, Billy Wright, inside the Maze Prison by the Irish National Liberation Army (INLA).
Shortly after Jameson leaves the club, he returns with a number of UVF men armed with baseball bats and pickaxe handles. A violent altercation breaks out in which 12 people are seriously injured including three LVF prisoners out on Christmas parole. The LVF decides to retaliate and sends a gunman to assassinate Jameson in the driveway outside his home on January 10, 2000. The UVF’s Brigade Staff in Belfast immediately convenes a “war council” at “the Eagle,” their headquarters over a chip shop on the Shankill Road, where they discuss plans to avenge Jameson’s killing. The LVF’s leader, Mark “Swinger” Fulton, who is imprisoned at the time, claims to no avail that his organisation is not involved in the shooting.
At 1:30 a.m. on Saturday, February 19, 2000, Protestant acquaintances, Andrew Robb, a 19-year-old unmarried father, and David McIlwaine, an 18-year-old graphic design student at Lurgan Tech, both of Portadown, leave “The Spot” nightclub in Tandragee together with three others after spending Friday night out. The club is managed by Willie Frazer, well known as a loyalist victims’ advocate and political activist, who has since suggested that the killings were linked to a threat posed to him by the UVF. Billy Wright had reportedly frequented the nightclub before his imprisonment and death.
The group of three men and two women attempt to enter a taxi, but regulations stipulate that no more than four passengers can travel together. Robb and McIlwaine get out of the vehicle and head in search of a house party. The pair knocks on the door of a house in Sinton Park belonging to Mid-Ulster UVF member Stephen Leslie Brown, 19, also known as “Stephen Leslie Revels.” They are invited inside where other UVF members Noel Dillon and Mark Burcombe are also present. Alcoholic beverages are consumed at the party.
The atmosphere inside the house suddenly turns ugly when Dillon asks the teenagers how they feel about the LVF killing of UVF Mid-Ulster brigadier Richard Jameson. McIlwaine remains silent, however Robb replies, “So fucking what, it’s got fuck all to do with me,” to which Dillon takes exception. When he informs Robb that Jameson had been his good friend, Robb makes further disparaging comments which also anger Brown. Brown, out of earshot of the teenagers, decides to assault Robb in retaliation, saying he will “punch the head off Andrew.” Neither Robb nor McIlwaine has been a member of any loyalist paramilitary organisation, although Robb has tenuous links to the LVF having been an associate of Billy Wright and even photographed in 1996 at a march led by Wright. Writers Henry McDonald and Ian S. Wood allege that, unknown to the teenagers, a UVF unit had gone to “The Spot” to seek out two known LVF individuals rumoured to have been involved in Jameson’s killing; however, they had already left the nightclub by the time the UVF arrived. The UVF men encounter Robb and McIlwaine instead and target them as LVF members implicated in Jameson’s death.
Under the pretense of another party elsewhere, Brown lures Robb and McIlwaine into his car along with Dillon and Burcombe. Brown drives off toward Druminure Road where he stops the car at a gate leading to a field and orders the passengers to get out. Burcombe leads McIlwaine away from the vehicle. As they are walking downhill, Burcombe informs McIlwaine that the other two men are going to “give Andrew Robb a beating for slabbering about Richard Jameson. Don’t worry about it, it’s nothing to do with you.” Brown and Dillon proceed to attack Robb with a series of savage kicks. He is then stabbed deeply in the abdomen and throat and dies instantly. He also sustains wounds and gashes to his face and head.
The two perpetrators return, both “walking with a swagger” to where McIlwaine waits downhill from the parked car with Burcombe. McIlwaine makes an attempt to run away but Brown, Dillon, and Burcombe catch up with him as he falls to the ground. Brown gives him a severe kicking, mostly in the head. Dillon produces a butcher’s knife and cuts McIlwaine’s throat while Brown shouts encouragement and Burcombe overlooks the scene from about five feet away. Brown and Dillon leave McIlwaine still breathing on the ground. Once they are back inside the car, Brown proposes to drive the car over his head, but Dillon dissuades him. Brown halts the vehicle, takes the knife and walks back over to where McIlwaine is lying on the road making a “wheezing” sound. Brown stabs McIlwaine repeatedly in the face and chest. When he notices that McIlwaine appears to be looking up at him, Brown stabs him deeply in his left eye, the wound penetrating his brain, killing him. According to Burcombe’s later testimony, Brown appears “crazed” as he hands the knife back to Dillon and says he is “buzzing.” He subsequently goes on to recount stabbing McIlwaine in the eye. He threatens to cut Burcombe’s throat or kill a member of his family if he tells anyone what happened.
Several hours later, at 9:30 a.m., the mutilated bodies of Robb and McIlwaine are discovered lying in pools of blood on the roadside 100 metres apart from one another by a woman taking her children to dancing lessons. Because of the devastating stab wounds inflicted upon the teenagers, the Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) assumes that McIlwaine had received a shotgun blast to his face. Both of their throats are slashed so deeply that the teenagers are nearly decapitated. The RUC immediately sets up an inquiry into the killings. Postmortems reveal that Robb had sustained a severe cut to the neck and three penetrating wounds to the abdomen. There are no defence injuries. McIlwaine received a severe throat injury, seven penetrating wounds to the chest and penetrating wounds to the face and to the left eye. Both teenagers were intoxicated at the time of their deaths.
The killings deeply shock the community and are strongly condemned by local politicians. The young men’s funerals attract hundreds of mourners. They are buried in adjacent graves at Kernan Cemetery in Portadown.
After the attacks Adair brands the UVF “Protestant killers” and even produces a newssheet in which he lists McIlwaine and Robb as Protestant victims of the UVF along with the likes of the murdered Frankie Curry and regular targets Jackie Mahood, Kenny McClinton and Clifford Peeples. The UVF Brigade Staff in Belfast does not sanction the killings of Robb and McIlwaine. The LVF leadership, however, maintains that the blame for the killings lies with the UVF and threatens to strike back against carefully selected targets in the Belfast UVF.
The day after the homicides, a number of people are arrested in connection with the crime, including Noel Dillon. The arrests are not made under anti-terrorist legislation, and the suspects are all released unconditionally the same evening. On February 27, 2000, Stephen Brown is brought before the Armagh magistrate’s court after he is charged with both murders. The police tell the court they have plenty of forensic evidence connecting him to the homicides. Ten months later, Brown is released on bail after the court is told the prosecution has expressed doubts about their principal witness and the forensic evidence is not sufficient to secure a conviction. On February 6, 2001, the charges against Brown are unexpectedly dropped by the Director of Public Prosecutions. In April 2001, Mark Burcombe is arrested under the Prevention of Terrorism Acts in relation to his UVF activities but is released without charge.
David McIlwaine’s father, Paul, campaigns for nine years to obtain justice for his son. He enlists the aid of a nationalist human rights group and sets up his own online support group, “Justice for David McIlwaine.”
On November 2, 2005, the Tandragee double killing is reconstructed and featured on the BBC One programme Crimewatch in which a £10,000 award is offered. After viewing the programme, Mark Burcombe consults a clergyman and solicitor and subsequently presents himself to police outside Hillsborough Castle to give them information regarding the events which took place on February 19, 2000. He is interviewed about the killings over a period of four days and admits to having known both Robb and McIlwaine. He is arrested and charged with the murders along with Stephen Brown, who had also been arrested on November 7, 2005, in connection with the double killing. Noel Dillon had committed suicide in January of that same year. When Detective Chief Inspector Tim Hanley charges Brown with the murders, the latter pleads not guilty to each charge. In January 2008, shortly before his trial is due to start, Burcombe decides to turn “Queen’s evidence.” He formally agrees to admit to and give a full account of his own role in the murders and to give evidence against Stephen Brown. He signs an Agreement under the Serious Organised Crime and Police Act 2005 to receive a reduced sentence in return for giving evidence against his co-defendant.
Burcombe pleads guilty to the offence of conspiracy to cause grievous bodily harm to Andrew Robb and is sentenced to 28 months’ imprisonment with two months consecutive for an unrelated suspended sentence. The Robb and McIlwaine families are outraged and disappointed at the leniency shown to Burcombe. Sinn Féin president Gerry Adams asks Patricia Scotland, Baroness Scotland of Asthal, the Attorney General for Northern Ireland, to review the case and consider an appeal to impose a heavier sentence, writing that “all records before the courts on this crime verify it was a barbaric act.” Adams also goes on to affirm that he shares the McIlwaine family’s belief that a state agent was involved in the homicides and was being protected. Lady Scotland, however, backs the plea bargain deal.
Stephen Brown is found guilty of the murders on March 3, 2009. The trial, which commences on November 25, 2008, is held at the Belfast Crown Court without a jury. The prosecution relies upon three pieces of evidence to prove Brown’s culpability. These are the testimony of Mark Burcombe, the forensic material found by the RUC at the crime scene, and the hearsay evidence of Brown’s former girlfriend who claims he had admitted to her that he had killed McIlwaine. Burcombe declares that McIlwaine was murdered because he had witnessed Robb’s killing.
One month later, April 3, Brown is sentenced to 35 years in prison for each count of murder. The trial judge, who had passed sentence on Brown, declares that the murders are “among the most gruesome of the past 40 years.” He goes on to add, “they represent unbridled mindless violence and a total disregard for the value and dignity of human life.” Brown makes an unsuccessful appeal to have his murder conviction overturned on May 24, 2011.
In February 1975, the Provisional Irish Republican Army and the British Government enter into a truce and restart negotiations. For the duration of the truce, the IRA agrees to halt its attacks on the British security forces, and the security forces mostly end their raids and searches. However, there are dissenters on both sides. There is a rise in sectarian killings during the truce, which “officially” lasts until February 1976.
At about 6:10 p.m., at least three masked men enter the home of the Reaveys, a Catholic family, in Whitecross, through a door that had been left unlocked. Brothers John (24), Brian (22) and Anthony Reavey (17) are alone in the house and are watching television in the sitting room. The gunmen open fire on them with two 9mm Sterling submachine guns, a 9mm Luger pistol and a .455 Webley revolver. John and Brian are killed outright. Anthony manages to run to the bedroom and take cover under a bed. He is shot several times and is left for dead. After searching the house and finding no one else, the gunmen leave. Badly wounded, Anthony crawls about 200 yards to a neighbour’s house to seek help. He dies of a brain haemorrhage on January 30. Although the pathologist says the shooting played no part in his death, Anthony is listed officially as a victim of the Troubles. A brother, Eugene Reavey, says “Our entire family could have been wiped out. Normally on a Sunday, the twelve of us would have been home, but that night my mother took everybody [else] out to visit my aunt.” Neighbours claim there had been two Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) checkpoints set up — one at either end of the road — around the time of the attack. These checkpoints are to stop passers-by from seeing what is happening. The RUC denies having patrols in the area at the time but says there could have been checkpoints manned by the British Army‘s Ulster Defence Regiment (UDR).
At about 6:20 p.m., three masked men burst into the home of the O’Dowds, another Catholic family, in Ballydougan, about fifteen miles away. Sixteen people are in the house for a family reunion. The male family members are in the sitting room with some of the children, playing the piano. The gunmen spray the room with bullets, killing Joseph O’Dowd (61) and his nephews Barry (24) and Declan O’Dowd (19). All three are members of the Social Democratic and Labour Party (SDLP) and the family believes this is the reason they are targeted. Barney O’Dowd, Barry and Declan’s father, is also wounded by gunfire. The RUC concludes that the weapon used is a 9mm Sterling submachine gun, although Barney believes a Luger pistol with a suppressor was also used. The gunmen had crossed a field to get to the house, and there is evidence that UDR soldiers had been in the field the day before.
The following day, gunmen stop a minibus carrying ten Protestant workmen near Whitecross and shoot them dead by the roadside. This becomes known as the Kingsmill massacre. The South Armagh Republican Action Force (SARAF) claims responsibility, saying it is retaliation for the Reavey and O’Dowd killings. Following the massacre, the British Government declares County Armagh to be a “Special Emergency Area” and announces that the Special Air Service (SAS) is being sent into South Armagh.
Some of the Reavey family come upon the scene of the Kingsmill massacre while driving to the hospital to collect the bodies of John and Brian. Some members of the security forces immediately begin a campaign of harassment against the Reavey family and accuse Eugene Reavey of orchestrating the Kingsmill massacre. On their way home from the morgue, the Reavey family are stopped at a checkpoint. Eugene claims the soldiers assaulted and humiliated his mother, put a gun to his back, and danced on his dead brothers’ clothes. The harassment would later involve the 3rd Battalion, Parachute Regiment. In 2007, the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) apologises for the “appalling harassment suffered by the family in the aftermath at the hands of the security forces.”
After the killings of the Reavey brothers, their father makes his five surviving sons swear not to retaliate or to join any republican paramilitary group.
In 1999, Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) leader Ian Paisley states in the House of Commons that Eugene Reavey “set up the Kingsmill massacre.” In 2010, a report by the police Historical Enquiries Team clears Eugene of any involvement. The Reavey family seeks an apology, but Paisley refuses to retract the allegation and dies in 2014.
Dickson is born on December 25, 1744, the eldest son of John Dickson, a tenant farmer of Ballycraigy, in the parish of Carnmoney, County Antrim. His mother is Jane Steel and, on the death of his uncle, William Steel, on May 13, 1747, the family adds his mother’s maiden name to their own.
In his boyhood, Dickson is educated by Robert White, a Presbyterian minister from Templepatrick and enters University of Glasgow in November 1761. Following graduation, he is apparently employed for a time in teaching, and in 1771 he is ordained as a Presbyterian minister. Until the outbreak of the American Revolutionary War, he occupies himself mainly with parochial and domestic duties. His political career begins in 1776, when he speaks and preaches against the “unnatural, impolitic and unprincipled” war with the American colonies, denouncing it as a “mad crusade.” On two government fast-days his sermons on “the advantages of national repentance” (December 13, 1776), and on “the ruinous effects of civil war” (February 27, 1778) create considerable excitement when published. Government loyalists denounce Dickson as a traitor.
Political differences are probably at the root of a secession from his congregation in 1777. The seceders form a new congregation at Kircubbin, County Down, in defiance of the authority of the general synod.
In 1771 Dickson marries Isabella Gamble, a woman of some means, who dies on July 15, 1819. They have at least eight children, but he outlives them all. One of his sons is in the Royal Navy and dies in 1798.
Dickson enters with zest into the volunteer movement of 1778, being warmly in favour of the admission of Roman Catholics to the ranks. This is resisted “through the greater part of Ulster, if not the whole.” In a sermon to the Echlinville volunteers on March 28, 1779, he advocates the enrolment of Catholics and though induced to modify his language in printing the discourse, he offends “all the Protestant and Presbyterian bigots in the country.” He is accused of being a papist at heart, “for the very substantial reason, among others, that the maiden name of the parish priest’s mother was Dickson.”
Though the contrary has been stated, Dickson is not a member of the Volunteer conventions at Dungannon in 1782 and 1783. He throws himself heart and soul into the famous election for County Down in August 1783, when the families of Hill and Stewart, compete for the county seat in Parliament. He, with his forty-shilling freeholders, fails to secure the election of Robert Stewart. But in 1790 he successfully campaigns for the election of Stewart’s son, better known as Lord Castlereagh. Castlereagh proves his gratitude by referring at a later date to Dickson’s popularity in 1790, as proof that he was “a very dangerous person to leave at liberty.”
In December 1791, Dickson joins Robert White’s son, John Campbell White, taking the “test” of the first Society of United Irishmen, organised in October in Belfast following a meeting held with Theobald Wolfe Tone, Protestant secretary of the Catholic Committee in Dublin. According to Dickson himself, he attends no further meetings of the Society but devotes himself to spreading its principles among the volunteer associations, in opposition to the “demi-patriotic” views of the Whig Club.
At a great volunteer meeting in Belfast on July 14, 1792, Dickson opposes a resolution for the gradual removal of Catholic disabilities and assists in obtaining a unanimous pledge in favour of total and immediate emancipation. Parish and county meetings are held throughout Ulster, culminating in a provincial convention at Dungannon on February 15, 1793. He is a leading spirit at many of the preliminary meetings, and, as a delegate from the Barony of Ards, he has a chief hand in the preparation of the Dungannon resolutions. Their avowed object is to strengthen the throne and give vitality to the constitution by “a complete and radical reform.” He is nominated on a committee of thirty to summon a national convention. The Irish parliament goes no further in the direction of emancipation than the Roman Catholic Relief Act 1793, which receives the royal assent on April 9, and remains unextended until 1829. While the passing of Lord Clare‘s Convention Act, still in force, makes illegal all future assemblies of delegates “purporting to represent the people, or any description of the people.”
In March and April 1798, Dickson is in Scotland arranging some family affairs. During his absence plans are made for an insurrection in Ulster, and soon after his return he agrees to take the place of Thomas Russell, who had been arrested, as adjutant-general of the United Irish forces for County Down. A few days before the county is to rise, he is himself arrested at Ballynahinch.
Dickson is conveyed to Belfast and lodged in the “black hole” and other prisons until August 12 when he is removed to a prison ship with William Tennant, Robert Hunter, Robert Simms, David Bailie Warden and Thomas Ledlie Birch, and detained there amid considerable discomfort. On March 25, 1799, Dickson, Tennant, Hunter, and Simms join the United Irish “State Prisoners” on a ship bound for Fort George, Highland prison in Scotland. This group, which includes Samuel Neilson, Arthur O’Connor, Thomas Russell, William James MacNeven, and Thomas Addis Emmet, arrives in Scotland on April 9, 1799. He spends two years there.
Unlike the more high-profile prisoners like O’Connor and MacNeven who are not released until June 1802, Tennant, Dickson, and Simms are permitted to return to Belfast in January 1802.
Dickson returns to liberty and misfortune. His wife has long been a helpless invalid, his eldest son is dead, his prospects are ruined. His congregation at Portaferry had been declared vacant on November 28, 1799. William Moreland, who had been ordained as his successor on June 16, 1800, at once offers to resign, but Dickson will not hear of this. He has thoughts of emigration but decides to stand his ground. At length, he is chosen by a seceding minority from the congregation of Keady, County Armagh, and installed minister on March 4, 1803.
Dickson’s political engagement ends with his attendance on September 9, 1811, of a Catholic meeting in Armagh, on returning from which he is cruelly beaten by Orangemen. In 1815 he resigns his charge in broken health and henceforth subsists on charity. Joseph Wright, an Episcopalian lawyer, gives him a cottage rent-free in the suburbs of Belfast, and some of his old friends make him a weekly allowance. His last appearance in the pulpit is early in 1824. He dies on December 27, 1824, having just passed his eightieth year, and is buried “in a pauper’s grave” at Clifton Street Cemetery, Belfast.
Barnhill, a right‐wing member of the Protestant‐based Ulster Unionist Party (UUP), which rules the British province, is the first member of the Parliament of Northern Ireland to die in two years of violence that have resulted in 196 deaths up to this point.
Barnhill’s wife says that the senator had gone to answer the door at their home, close to the border with the Republic of Ireland. She says she heard two shots and found her husband lying near the door with a gunman kneeling at his side. Then, she says, a second man helps drag him into the main room, where the attackers plant a gelignite bomb beside his body.
Barnhill, 63 years old, has been a Senator for ten years. He often is outspoken in public denunciations of the outlawed Irish Republican Army (IRA) for its terrorist campaign to overthrow the provincial government. He is an officer in the Orange Order, the powerful Freemasonry of Northern Ireland Protestants, and a director of a Londonderry seed company.
The police say that Mrs. Barnhill ran for help from the ruins of her home and is admitted to a hospital under treatment for shock.
At least 28 people die in the violence of the previous nine days, fifteen of them in an explosion on December 4 that wrecks a bar in a Roman Catholic area.
The leadership of the Irish Republican Army disclaims responsibility for the bombs and charges that they were set off as acts of provocation by the British Army. The British dismiss the charge as ludicrous.
The IRA, fighting for the separation of predominantly Protestant Northern Ireland from Britain and its merger with the Republic of Ireland to the south, has threatened to destroy Belfast‘s center by Christmas. Mass arrests fail to halt the latest wave of violence.
Preaching in St. Patrick’s Cathedral, Armagh, Ireland’s ecclesiastical capital, the Belfast‐born Cardinal delivers his toughest attack yet on the latest incidents, which include the fatal shooting of a parttime soldier in his home in front of his five children, and the bombing the previous day of a Protestant‐owned Belfast furniture showroom, in which four people are killed and nineteen are injured.
A plaque commemorating Barnhill’s murder is unveiled at Stormont on the 30th anniversary of his death on December 12, 2001.
(From: “Rightist Ulster Senator Slain by Gunmen in Home,” The New York Times, http://www.nytimes.com, December 13, 1971)
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.
The move forces the Government of the United Kingdom to either again suspend the assembly, with rule of Northern Ireland returning to London, or call new elections.
The UUP, the largest Protestant party, are angry over lack of progress on the decommissioning of weapons by the Irish Republican Army (IRA). UUP leader David Trimble (pictured), who has already quit as the assembly’s leader, says his party has spent eighteen months in the government with representatives of Sinn Féin, the republican political party, without the IRA putting its weapons beyond use.
“We have sustained an inclusive executive for eighteen months. For eighteen months we have demonstrated every day our willingness to make progress in terms of this institution and politics in Northern Ireland,” says Trimble, who shared the 1998 Nobel Peace Prize with Catholic moderate leader John Hume. “And for those eighteen months the republican movement have done nothing, nothing at all to reciprocate the sacrifice and risks we have made.”
Trimble later tells CNN the move is a “last resort,” adding: “It’s still up to the IRA. They can still save the situation by doing what they promised to do eighteen months ago. I wish they would.” He adds, “I resigned on the 1st of July. That was a clear indication to the IRA if they hadn’t seen it beforehand of the need to do something. We have been remarkably patient over the last few months — waiting, waiting, waiting. I don’t particularly welcome the resumption of direct rule from London but that will come about quite soon if the IRA don’t move.”
Trimble says the situation is helped, however, because “it removes from office the two Sinn Féin ministers who are there. They will be out of office, and it should be quite clear to them and quite clear to their electorate that they have brought about a crisis by their failure to keep their promises.”
Trimble says the main nationalist newspaper in Northern Ireland has called on the IRA to start the process of disarming and lays the blame clearly on them. “It’s not just unionists who are pointing the finger and saying ‘you’ve let us down’ — it is also nationalists.” Trimble adds that although his move is clearly a step back, he hopes it will soon be a case of “two steps forward.”
There is speculation earlier in the week that the IRA leadership is on the brink of an historic move on weapons. It had been hoped the IRA could agree with disarmament officials to seal one or more of its hidden arms dumps with concrete. The IRA has already allowed foreign diplomats to visit a few arms dumps in secret. These weapons are the first likely candidates for decommissioning as required in Northern Ireland’s 1998 Good Friday Agreement.
It is now up to the Northern Ireland minister, John Reid, to decide whether to order a short suspension of the assembly or to dissolve it, returning to direct rule from London, and call new elections. The assembly cannot survive without the participation of either the Ulster Unionists or the largest Catholic-supported party, Hume’s Social Democratic and Labour Party (SDLP).
CNN’s European political editor Robin Oakley says the move by the Ulster Unionists means Northern Ireland is facing another crisis after a summer of disappointment and an upsurge of cross-community violence. He says the danger of calling new elections is that there is evidence from the general election earlier in the year of an increase in support for hardline parties.
There is increased support for Sinn Féin, the republican political party, and the Democratic Unionists, who are opposed to the peace agreement forged in Northern Ireland in 1998.
Trimble agrees in November 1999 to form a four-party government that includes Sinn Féin on condition that IRA disarmament follows. Since then, Trimble has battled hard-liners, inside and outside his party, to keep the coalition intact while the IRA makes little movement on the issue.
Britain has stripped power from the executive three times – first for an indefinite period in February 2000 when it appeared likely that Trimble would be ousted as a leader. The Ulster Unionists resume power-sharing after the IRA says it intends to begin putting its weapons “completely and verifiably beyond use.” But the assembly is then suspended twice for 24-hour periods over the summer after Trimble quit as first minister.
(From: “Unionists quit N. Ireland assembly,” CNN.com, October 18, 2001)
Spence, the sixth of seven children, is born and raised in the Shankill Road area of West Belfast in Northern Ireland, the son of William Edward Spence, a member of the Ulster Volunteers who fought in World War I, and Isabella “Bella” Hayes. The family home is 66 Joseph Street in an area of the lower Shankill known colloquially as “the Hammer.” He is educated at the Riddel School on Malvern Street and the Hemsworth Square school, finishing his education at the age of fourteen. He is also a member of the Church Lads’ Brigade, a Church of Ireland group, and the Junior Orange Order. His family has a long tradition of Orange Order membership.
Spence takes various manual jobs in the area until joining the British Army in 1957 as a member of the Royal Ulster Rifles. He rises to the rank of Provost Sergeant (battalion police). He is stationed in Cyprus and sees action fighting against the forces of Colonel Georgios Grivas. He serves until 1961 when ill-health forces him to leave. He then finds employment at the Harland & Wolff shipyard in Belfast, where he works as a stager (builder of the scaffolding in which the ships are constructed), a skilled job that commands respect among working class Protestants and ensures for him a higher status within the Shankill.
From an early age Spence is a member of the Prince Albert Temperance Loyal Orange Lodge, where fellow members include John McQuade. He is also a member of the Royal Black Institution and the Apprentice Boys of Derry. Due to his later involvement in a murder, he is expelled from the Orange Order and the Royal Black Institution. The Reverend Martin Smyth is influential in his being thrown out of the Orange Order.
Spence’s older brother Billy is a founding member of Ulster Protestant Action (UPA) in 1956, and he is also a member of the group. He is frequently involved in street fights with republicans and garners a reputation as a “hard man.” He is also associated loosely with prominent loyalists such as Ian Paisley and Desmond Boal and is advised by both men in 1959 when he launches a protest against Gerry Fitt at Belfast City Hall after Fitt had described Spence’s regiment as “murderers” over allegations that they had killed civilians in Cyprus. He, along with other Shankill Road loyalists, break from Paisley in 1965 when they side with James Kilfedder in a row that follows the latter’s campaigns in Belfast West. Paisley intimates that Kilfedder, a rival for the leadership of dissident unionism, is close to Fine Gael after learning that he had attended party meetings while a student at Trinity College Dublin (TCD). The Shankill loyalists support Kilfedder and following his election as MP send a letter to Paisley accusing him of treachery during the entire affair.
Spence claims that he is approached in 1965 by two men, one of whom was an Ulster Unionist Party MP, who tells him that the Ulster Volunteer Force is to be re-established and that he is to have responsibility for the Shankill. He is sworn in soon afterward in a ceremony held in secret near Pomeroy, County Tyrone. Because of his military experience, he is chosen as the military commander and public face of the UVF when the group is established. However, RUC Special Branch believes that his brother Billy, who keeps a much lower public profile, is the real leader of the group. Whatever the truth of this intelligence, Spence’s Shankill UVF team is made up of only around 12 men on its formation. Their base of operations is the Standard Bar, a pub on the Shankill Road frequented by Spence and his allies.
On May 7, 1966, a group of UVF men led by Spence petrol bomb a Catholic-owned pub on the Shankill Road. Fire also engulfs the house next door, killing the elderly Protestant widow, Matilda Gould (77), who lives there. On May 27, he orders four UVF men to kill an Irish Republican Army (IRA) member, Leo Martin, who lives on the Falls Road. Unable to find their target, the men drive around in search of any Catholic instead. They shoot dead John Scullion (28), a Catholic civilian, as he walks home. Spence later writes “at the time, the attitude was that if you couldn’t get an IRA man you should shoot a Taig, he’s your last resort.” On June 26, the same gang shoots dead Catholic civilian Peter Ward (18) and wounds two others as they leave a pub on Malvern Street in the lower Shankill. Two days later, the government of Northern Ireland uses the Special Powers Act to declare the UVF illegal. Shortly after, Spence and three others are arrested.
In October 1966, Spence is sentenced to life imprisonment for the murder of Ward, although he has always claimed his innocence. He is sent to Crumlin Road Prison. During its July 12, 1967, march, the Orange lodge to which he belongs stops outside the prison in tribute to him. This occurs despite him having been officially expelled from the Orange Order following his conviction. His involvement in the killings gives him legendary status among many young loyalists and he is claimed as an inspiration by the likes of Michael Stone. Tim Pat Coogan describes Spence as a “loyalist folk hero.” The murder of Ward is, however, repudiated by Paisley and condemned in his Protestant Telegraph, sealing the split between the two.
Spence appeals against his conviction and is the subject of a release petition organised by the Ulster Constitution Defence Committee, although nothing comes of either initiative. Despite the fact that control of the UVF lay with his closest ally, Samuel “Bo” McClelland, from prison he is often at odds with the group’s leadership, in particular with regards to the 1971 McGurk’s Bar bombing. Spence now argues that UVF members are soldiers and soldiers should not kill civilians, as had been the case at McGurk’s Bar. He respects some Irish republican paramilitaries, who he feels also live as soldiers, and to this end he writes a sympathetic letter to the widow of Official IRA leader Joe McCann after he is killed in 1972.
Spence is granted two days leave in early July 1972 to attend the wedding of his daughter Elizabeth to Winston Churchill “Winkie” Rea. The latter had formally asked Spence for his daughter’s hand in marriage during a prison visit. Met by two members of the Red Hand Commando upon his release, Spence is informed of the need for a restructuring within the UVF and told not to return to prison. He initially refuses and goes on to attend his daughter’s wedding. Afterward a plot is concocted where Jim Curry, a Red Hand Commando member, will drive Spence back to prison but the car is to be stopped and Spence “kidnapped.” As arranged, the car in which he is a passenger is stopped in Springmartin and he is taken away by UVF members. He remains at large for four months and during that time gives an interview to ITV‘s World in Action in which he calls for the UVF to take an increased role in the Northern Ireland conflict against the Provisional IRA. At the same time, he distances himself from any policy of random murders of Catholics. He also takes on responsibility for the restructuring, returning the UVF to the same command structure and organisational base that Edward Carson had utilised for the original UVF, with brigades, battalions, companies, platoons and sections. He also directs a significant restocking of the group’s arsenal, with guns mostly taken from the security forces. He gives his permission for UVF brigadier Billy Hanna to establish the UVF’s Mid-Ulster Brigade in Lurgan. His fugitive status earns him the short-lived nickname the “Orange Pimpernel.” He is arrested along with around thirty other men at a UVF drinking club in Brennan Street, but after giving a false name, he is released.
Spence’s time on the outside comes to an end on November 4 when he is captured by Colonel Derek Wilford of the Parachute Regiment, who identifies him by tattoos on his hands. He is sent directly to Long Kesh Detention Centre soon afterward, where he shares a cell with William “Plum” Smith, one of the Red Hand Commandos whom he had met upon his initial release and who had since been jailed for attempted murder.
Spence soon becomes the UVF commander within the Long Kesh Detention Centre. He runs his part of Long Kesh along military lines, drilling inmates and training them in weapons use while also expecting a maintenance of discipline. As the loyalist Long Kesh commander, he initially also has jurisdiction over the imprisoned members of the Ulster Defence Association (UDA), although this comes to an end in 1973 when, following a deterioration in relations between the two groups outside the prison walls, James Craig becomes the UDA’s Maze commander. By this time Spence polarises opinion within the UVF, with some members fiercely loyal to a man they see as a folk hero and others resenting his draconian leadership and increasing emphasis on politics, with one anonymous member even labelling him “a cunt in a cravat.”
Spence begins to move toward a position of using political means to advance one’s aims, and he persuades the UVF leadership to declare a temporary ceasefire in 1973. Following Merlyn Rees‘ decision to legalise the UVF in 1974, Spence encourages them to enter politics and support the establishment of the Volunteer Political Party (VPP). However, his ideas are abandoned as the UVF ceasefire falls apart that same year following the Ulster Workers’ Council strike and the Dublin and Monaghan bombings. The carnage of the latter shocks and horrifies Spence. Furthermore, the VPP suffers a heavy defeat in West Belfast in the October 1974 United Kingdom general election, when the DUP candidate, John McQuade, captures six times as many votes as the VPP’s Ken Gibson.
Spence is increasingly disillusioned with the UVF, and he imparts these views to fellow inmates at Long Kesh. According to Billy Mitchell, Spence quizzes him and others sent to Long Kesh about why they are there, seeking an ideological answer to his question. When the prisoner is unable to provide one, Spence then seeks to convince them of the wisdom of his more politicised path, something that he accomplishes with Mitchell. David Ervine and Billy Hutchinson are among the other UVF men imprisoned in the mid-1970s to become disciples of Spence. In 1977, he publicly condemns the use of violence for political gain, on the grounds that it is counterproductive. In 1978, he leaves the UVF altogether. His brother Bobby, also a UVF member, dies in October 1980 inside the Maze, a few months after the death of their brother Billy.
Released from prison in 1984, Spence soon becomes a leading member of the UVF-linked Progressive Unionist Party (PUP) and a central figure in the Northern Ireland peace process. He initially works solely for the PUP but eventually also sets up the Shankill Activity Centre, a government-supported scheme to provide training and leisure opportunities for unemployed youths.
Spence is entrusted by the Combined Loyalist Military Command (CLMC) to read out their October 13, 1994, statement that announces the loyalist ceasefire. Flanked by his PUP colleagues Jim McDonald and William Plum Smith, as well as Ulster Democratic Party (UDP) members Gary McMichael, John White and David Adams, he reads the statement from Fernhill, a former Cunningham family home on their former Glencairn estate in Belfast’s Glencairn area. This building had been an important training centre for members of Edward Carson’s original UVF. A few days after the announcement, he makes a trip to the United States along with the PUP’s David Ervine and Billy Hutchinson and the UDP’s McMichael, Adams and Joe English. Among their engagements is one as guests of honour of the National Committee on American Foreign Policy. He goes on to become a leading advocate for the Good Friday Agreement.
In August 2000, Spence is caught up in moves by Johnny Adair‘s “C” Company of the UDA to take control of the Shankill by forcing out the UVF and other opponents. Due to his involvement in the peace process and the eventual Good Friday Agreement, the authorities insist against his wishes to install additional security measures to the doors and windows. As a result, when Adair’s men try to force their way into Spence’s Shankill home, they only manage to push a long stick through a partially open window of the bungalow and dislodge a few of his military frames off the opposite wall. There is no other damage and other than that small disruption no one is able to gain any physical entry into the property. When Spence’s wife dies three years later, he says that C Company is responsible for her death, as the events had taken on her health.
On May 3, 2007, Spence reads out the statement by the UVF announcing that it will keep its weapons but put them beyond the reach of ordinary members. The statement also includes a warning that activities could “provoke another generation of loyalists toward armed resistance.” He does not specify what activities or what is being resisted.
Spence marries Louie Donaldson, a native of the city’s Grosvenor Road, on June 20, 1953, at Wellwood Street Mission, Sandy Row. The couple has three daughters, Elizabeth (born 1954), Sandra (1956) and Catherine (1960). Louie dies in 2003. Spence, a talented footballer in his youth with Old Lodge F.C., is a lifelong supporter of Linfield F.C.
Spence dies in a Belfast hospital at the age of 78 on September 25, 2011. He had been suffering from a long-term illness and was admitted to hospital 12 days prior to his death. He is praised by, among others, PUP leader Brian Ervine, who states that “his contribution to the peace is incalculable.” Sinn Féin‘s Gerry Kelly claims that while Spence had been central to the development of loyalist paramilitarism, “he will also be remembered as a major influence in drawing loyalism away from sectarian strife.”
However, a granddaughter of Matilda Gould, a 74-year-old Protestant widow who had died from burns sustained in the UVF’s attempted bombing of a Catholic bar next door to her home, objects to Spence being called a “peacemaker” and describes him as a “bad evil man.” The unnamed woman states, “When you go out and throw a petrol bomb through a widow’s window, you’re no peacemaker.”
Spence’s funeral service is held in St. Michael’s Church of Ireland on the Shankill Road. Notable mourners include Unionist politicians Dawn Purvis, Mike Nesbitt, Michael McGimpsey, Hugh Smyth and Brian Ervine, UVF chief John “Bunter” Graham and UDA South Belfast brigadier Jackie McDonald. In accordance with his wishes, there are no paramilitary trappings at the funeral or reference to his time in the UVF. Instead, his coffin is adorned with the beret and regimental flag of the Royal Ulster Rifles, his former regiment. He is buried in Bangor, County Down.
Colonel Frederick Hugh Crawford, CBE, JP, an officer in the British Army, is born in Belfast on August 21, 1861. A staunch Ulster loyalist, he is one of the lesser-known figures in Ulster Unionist history but one who is hugely influential because of his involvement in what is known as the Larne gun-running incident, when he is responsible for smuggling over 25,000 guns and ammunition into the North on the night of April 24, 1914. This makes him a hero for Northern Ireland‘s unionists.
According to the 1911 census for Ireland, Crawford is living in Marlborough Park, Belfast, with his wife of 15 years, Helen, and four of their five children: Helen Nannie, Marjorie Doreen, Ethel Bethea and Malcolm Adair Alexander. His other child, Stuart Wright Knox, is recorded as a pupil at Ballycloghan National School, Belfast. Stuart would become a lieutenant colonel in the British Army, before being invalided in 1944. Malcolm, after being a member of the Colonial Police, joins the Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC), advancing to District Inspector. In 1931, Malcolm becomes a Justice of the Peace for Singapore.
Crawford works as an engineer for White Star Line in the 1880s, before returning from Australia in 1892. In 1894, he enlists with the Mid-Ulster Artillery regiment of the British Army, before being transferred to the Donegal Artillery, with which he serves during the Boer Wars, earning himself the rank of major.
In 1898, Crawford is appointed governor of Campbell College, Belfast. Two of his children, Stuart Wright Knox and Malcolm Adair Alexander, both attend Campbell College.
In 1911, Crawford becomes a member of the Ulster Unionist Council. On September 28, 1912, he is in charge of the 2,500 well-dressed stewards and marshals that escort Sir Edward Carson and the Ulster Unionist leadership from the Ulster Hall in central Belfast to the nearby City Hall on Donegall Square for the signing of the Ulster Covenant, which he allegedly signs in his own blood. With the formation of the Ulster Volunteers in 1913, he is made their Director of Ordnance.
With regard to Irish Home Rule, Crawford is strongly partisan and backs armed resistance to it, being contemptuous of those who use political bluffing. His advocation of armed resistance is evident when he remarks, at a meeting of the Ulster Unionist Council, that his heart “rejoiced” when he heard talk of looking into using physical force. At another meeting he even goes as far as asking some attendees to step into another room where he has fixed bayonets, rifles and cartridges laid out.
In 1910, the Ulster Unionist Council plans for the creation of an army to oppose Home Rule and approaches Crawford to act as their agent in securing weapons and ammunition. He tries several times to smuggle arms into Ulster, however, vigilant customs officials seize many of them at the docks. Despite this, the meticulously planned and audacious Larne gun-running of April 1914, devised and carried out by Crawford, is successful in bringing in enough arms to equip the Ulster Volunteer Force.
By the 1920s Crawford remains as stoic in his beliefs, remarking in a letter in 1920 that “I am ashamed to call myself an Irishman. Thank God I am not one. I am an Ulsterman, a very different breed.” In March 1920, he begins to reorganize the UVF and in May 1920 he appeals to Carson and James Craig for official government recognition. He states, “We in Ulster will not be able to hold our men in hand much longer…we will have the Protestants…killing a lot of the well-known Sinn Féin leaders and hanging half a dozen priests.” In 1921, he attempts to create an organisation intended to be a “Detective Reserve,” but called the “Ulster Brotherhood,” the aims of which are to uphold the Protestant religion and political and religious freedom, as well as use all means to “destroy and wipe out the Sinn Féin conspiracy of murder, assassination and outrage.” This organisation only lasts for a few months after failing to gain acceptance from the political authorities.
In 1921, Crawford is included in the Royal Honours List and appointed a CBE. In 1934, he writes his memoirs, titled Guns for Ulster.
Crawford dies on November 5, 1952, and is buried in the City Cemetery, Falls Road, Belfast. Upon news of his death, he is described by the then Prime Minister of Northern Ireland, Sir Basil Brooke, as being “as a fearless fighter in the historic fight to keep Ulster British.”
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 