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Tag Archives: Provisional Irish Republican Army


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Death of Billy McMillen, Official Irish Republican Army Officer

William McMillen, Irish republican activist and an officer of the Official Irish Republican Army (OIRA) from Belfast, Northern Ireland, is killed during a feud with the Irish National Liberation Army (INLA) on April 28, 1975.

McMillen is born in Belfast on May 19, 1927, and joins the Irish Republican Army (IRA) at age 16 in 1943. During the IRA’s border campaign (1956–62), he is interned and held in Crumlin Road Gaol. In 1964, he runs in the British general election as an Independent Republican candidate. When he places the Irish tricolour in the window of his election office in the lower Falls Road area, this sparks a riot between republicans, loyalists and the Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC). There have been tensions on the issue since the government of Northern Ireland banned the flying of the tricolour under the Flags and Emblems (Display) Act (Northern Ireland) 1954.

In October 1964, during the general election campaign, a photo of McMillen is placed in the window of the election office in Divis Street flanked on one side by the Starry Plough flag and on the other by the tricolour. His campaign draws national attention after Ian Paisley demands that police remove the tricolour from McMillen’s election offices. The RUC raids the premises and confiscates the flag, sparking several days of rioting during which McMillen leads several thousand protesters in defiantly displaying the tricolour. He recalls the IRA gaining a “couple of dozen recruits” following the election, but he finishes at the bottom of the poll with 3,256 votes (6%). Around this time, he succeeds Billy McKee as the Officer commanding (OC) of the Belfast Brigade.

McMillen is keen to work for the unity of Protestant and Catholic workers. Roy Garland recalls that McMillan’s grandfather was master of an Orange lodge in Edinburgh and McMillan knew of that heritage and the meaning of the colours of the Irish flag. He prominently displays in his election offices a verse of a poem by John Frazier, a Presbyterian from County Offaly: “Till then the Orange lily be your badge my patriot brother. The everlasting green for me and we for one and other.”

In 1967, McMillen is involved in the formation of the Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association (NICRA) and is a member of a three-man committee which draws up the Association’s constitution. The NICRA’s peaceful activities result in violent opposition from many unionists, leading to fears that Catholic areas will come under attack. In May 1969, when asked at an IRA army council meeting by Ruairí Ó Brádaigh how many weapons the Belfast Brigade has for defensive operations, McMillen states they have only one pistol, a machine gun and some ammunition.

By August 14, 1969, serious rioting has broken out in Belfast and Catholic districts come under attack from both civilian unionists and the RUC. McMillen’s IRA command by this point still has only a limited number of weapons because the leadership in Dublin are reluctant to release guns. While he is involved in some armed actions on this day, he is widely blamed by those who established the Provisional IRA for the IRA’s failure to adequately defend Catholic neighbourhoods from Ulster loyalist attack. He is arrested and temporarily detained by the RUC on the morning of August 15 but is released shortly afterward.

McMillen’s role in the 1969 riots is very important within IRA circles, as it is one of the major factors contributing to the split in the movement in late 1969. In a June 1972 lecture organised by Official Sinn Féin in Dublin, he defends his conduct, stating that by 1969 the total membership of the Belfast IRA is approximately 120 men, and their armaments have increased to a grand total of 24 weapons, most of which are short-range pistols.

In September, McMillen calls a meeting of IRA commanders in Belfast. Billy McKee and several other republicans arrive at the meeting armed and demand McMillen’s resignation. He refuses, but many of those unhappy with his leadership break away and refuse to take orders from him or the Dublin IRA leadership. Most of them join the Provisional Irish Republican Army, when this group splits off from the IRA in December 1969. McMillen himself remains loyal to the IRA’s Dublin leadership, which becomes known as the Official IRA. The split rapidly develops into a bitter rivalry between the two groups. In April 1970, he is shot and wounded by Provisional IRA members in the Lower Falls area of Belfast.

In June 1970, McMillen’s Official IRA have their first major confrontation with the British Army, which had been deployed to Belfast in the previous year, in an incident known as the Falls Curfew. The British Army mounts an arms search in the Official IRA stronghold of the Lower Falls, where they are attacked with a grenade by Provisional IRA members. In response, the British flood the area with troops and declare a curfew. This leads to a three-day gun battle between 80 to 90 Official IRA members led by McMillen and up to 3,000 British troops. Five civilians are killed in the fighting and about 60 are wounded. In addition, 35 rifles, 6 machine guns, 14 shotguns, grenades, explosives and 21,000 rounds of ammunition, all belonging to the OIRA, are seized. McMillen blames the Provisionals for instigating the incident and then refusing to help the Officials against the British.

This ill-feeling eventually leads to an all-out feud between the republican factions in Belfast in March 1971. The Provisionals attempt to kill McMillen again, as well as his second-in-command, Jim Sullivan. In retaliation, McMillen has Charlie Hughes, a young PIRA member, killed. Tom Cahill, brother of leading Provisional Joe Cahill, is also shot and wounded. After these deaths, the two IRA factions in Belfast negotiate a ceasefire and direct their attention instead at the British Army.

When the Northern Ireland authorities introduce internment in August 1971, McMillen flees Belfast for Dundalk in the Republic of Ireland, where he remains for several months. During this time, the Official IRA carries out many attacks on the British Army and other targets in Northern Ireland. However, in April 1972, the organisation in Belfast is badly weakened by the death of their commander in the Markets area, Joe McCann. In May of that year, the Dublin leadership of the OIRA calls a ceasefire, a move which McMillen supports. Nevertheless, in the year after the ceasefire, his command kills seven British soldiers in what they term “retaliatory attacks.” McMillen serves on the Ard Chomhairle (leadership council) of Official Sinn Féin.

By 1974, a group of OIRA members around Seamus Costello are unhappy with the ceasefire. In December 1974, they break away from the Official movement, forming the Irish Republican Socialist Party (IRSP) and the Irish National Liberation Army (INLA). Some OIRA members under McMillen’s command, including the entire Divis Flats unit, defect to the new grouping. This provokes another intra-republican feud in Belfast. The feud begins with arms raids on OIRA dumps and beatings of their members by the INLA. McMillen, in response is accused of drawing up a “death list” of IRSP/INLA members and even of handing information on them over to the loyalist Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF).

The first killing comes on February 20, 1975, when the OIRA shoot dead an INLA member named Hugh Ferguson in west Belfast. A spate of shootings follows on both sides.

On April 28, 1975, McMillen is shot dead by INLA member Gerard Steenson, as he is shopping in a hardware shop on Spinner Street with his wife Mary. He is hit in the neck and dies at the scene. His killing is unauthorised and is condemned by INLA/IRSP leader Seamus Costello. Despite this, the OIRA tries to kill Costello on May 9, 1975, and eventually kills him two years later. McMillen’s death is a major blow to the OIRA in Belfast.


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Birth of John Kelly, Northern Irish Politician & IRA Volunteer

John Kelly, Northern Irish republican politician, is born in the New Lodge area of Belfast, Northern Ireland, on April 5, 1936. He joins the Irish Republican Army (IRA) in the 1950s and is a founder member and a leader of the Provisional Irish Republican Army in the early 1970s.

Kelly is one of five sons and four daughters born to William Kelly, retail and wholesale fruitier, and his wife Margaret (née Maginness). Living off Carlisle Circus in a flashpoint area of north Belfast and close to Crumlin Road Gaol, the Kellys are a strongly republican family, regularly supplying republican inmates with fruit and assisting them on their release.

Later in life Kelly moves to Maghera, County Londonderry, where he lives until his death in 2007. He and his wife have a daughter. He is a dedicated member of local Gaelic Athletic Association (GAA) club Watty Graham’s GAC, Glen and a keen supporter of Gaelic games and the Irish language.

Kelly joins the IRA in the early 1950s when he is eighteen and takes part in the Border Campaign of 1956–62 but is arrested in December 1956 and imprisoned until 1963. He is a member of the Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association (NICRA) in 1967–69 which leads on to sectarian riots in Belfast. A leader of the newly formed Provisional IRA in 1969, he is involved in the formation of “citizens’ defence groups” to protect nationalist areas of Belfast from loyalist rioters who are largely unhampered by the police.

Kelly is jailed on three occasions for IRA related activity spending a total of fifteen years in prison in Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland. His first term is for his activity in the 1956 IRA border campaign. He also serves a six-month term in 1973 in the Republic of Ireland for being a member of the IRA.

Commenting later on the Troubles, Kelly says, “Yes, it was a terrible period. But you can’t turn the clock back. The Irish government did not create the Provisional IRA. What happened was as inevitable as the changing seasons.”

The citizens’ defence groups seek help from the government in Dublin in 1969, then led by Jack Lynch. Several ministers respond and arrange a fund of £100,000 but the planned arms shipment fails. Kelly later says, “These discussions were all about guns. The whole thing was government-sponsored, government-backed and government-related.” The planning includes travel to Britain, Europe, and on to the United States where he meets the founders of NORAID. He is one of the co-defendants in the subsequent Dublin “Arms Trial” with ministers Charles Haughey and Neil Blaney, accused of conspiring to import arms illegally into the Republic of Ireland. The trial eventually collapses from a lack of evidence, as the relevant government files are kept secret, but the Irish government sacks several ministers as a result.

Kelly goes into electoral politics, serving on Magherafelt District Council from 1997. At the 1998 Northern Ireland Assembly election he is elected to the Northern Ireland Assembly as a Sinn Féin member for Mid Ulster. He is deselected before the 2003 election, and criticises the decision by the Sinn Féin leadership to support policing reforms. In January 2006 he co-writes a letter with Brendan Hughes which casts doubt on the claims that dissident republicans have threatened Sinn Féin leaders and claims that the real threats are being made by the Sinn Féin leadership against those who seek a debate on policing. He leaves Sinn Féin which he considers too controlled from the centre, opposing the leadership “deceit and the philosophy of creative ambiguity,” and he retires from politics.

Kelly dies in Maghera following a long battle with cancer on September 5, 2007. Many tributes are paid to him including a minute’s silence before the Derry Senior Football Championship quarter final between St. Patrick’s GAC, Loup, and Dungiven GAC on September 8, 2007, at the home of his local club, Watty Graham GAC, Glen. A Na Piarsaigh Belfast GAC jersey is draped over his coffin before he is interred at Maghera Catholic Graveyard.


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Birth of Patrick Kelly, Provisional Irish Republican Army Commander

Patrick Joseph Kelly, commander of the East Tyrone Brigade of the Provisional Irish Republican Army during the mid-1980s, is born in Carrickfergus, County Antrim, Northern Ireland, on March 19, 1957. He holds the position until his death in a Special Air Service (SAS) ambush at Loughgall, County Armagh in May 1987.

Kelly is the oldest child in a Roman Catholic family of five. He lives in Carrickfergus until he is sixteen, at which time the family returns to live in Dungannon. His uncle is the Irish Republican activist and elected official Liam Kelly.

Kelly becomes a member of the Provisional Irish Republican Army at the beginning of the 1970s and becomes one of the most experienced IRA men in County Tyrone. He is arrested in February 1982 based on testimony from an informant named Patrick McGurk but is released in October 1983 due to lack of evidence, after a trial that lasts fifteen minutes.

In 1985, Kelly becomes brigade commander in East Tyrone and begins developing tactics for attacking isolated Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) bases in his area. Under his leadership the East Tyrone Brigade becomes the most active IRA unit.

In 1986, Kelly attends the IRA Army Convention where the main topic of discussion is the principle of abstentionism. Gerry Adams and others argue that the abstentionist rule should be dropped and the Provisional movement should become involved in constitutional politics. Kelly votes against dropping the rule, and a rift with the majority of the IRA Army Council ensues.

Kelly is killed by the Special Air Service (SAS) on May 8, 1987, while he is participating in an attack on Loughgall police station, in which seven other IRA men, Pádraig McKearney, Declan Arthurs, Seamus Donnelly, Tony Gormley, Eugene Kelly, Jim Lynagh, and Gerard O’Callaghan, also die. His funeral in Dungannon is one of the largest in Tyrone during the Troubles.

Kelly is buried in Edendork Cemetery, two miles from his home in Dungannon.


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1973 Northern Ireland Border Poll

The 1973 Northern Ireland border poll is a referendum held in Northern Ireland on March 8, 1973, on whether Northern Ireland should remain part of the United Kingdom or join with the Republic of Ireland to form a united Ireland. It is the first time that a major referendum has been held in any region of the United Kingdom. The referendum is boycotted by nationalists and results in a conclusive victory for remaining in the UK. On a voter turnout of 58.7 percent, 98.9 percent vote to remain in the United Kingdom, meaning the outcome among registered voters is not affected by the boycott.

The Unionist parties support the “UK” option, as do the Northern Ireland Labour Party (NILP) and the Alliance Party of Northern Ireland (APNI). However, the Alliance Party is also critical of the poll. While it supports the holding of periodic plebiscites on the constitutional link with Great Britain, the party feels that to avoid the border poll becoming a “sectarian head count,” it should ask other relevant questions such as whether the people support the UK’s white paper on Northern Ireland. Nevertheless, on February 5, 1973, the party’s chairman, Jim Hendron, states that “Support for the position of Northern Ireland as an integral part of the United Kingdom is a fundamental principle of the Alliance Party, not only for economic reasons but also because we firmly believe that a peaceful solution to our present tragic problems is only possible within a United Kingdom context. Either a Sinn Féin all-Ireland republic or a Vanguard-style Ulster republic would lead to disaster for all our people.”

The Social Democratic and Labour Party (SDLP), however, calls for a boycott of the referendum, urging its members on January 23, 1973 “to ignore completely the referendum and reject this extremely irresponsible decision by the British Government.” Gerry Fitt, leader of the SDLP, says he has organised a boycott to stop an escalation in violence.

The civil authorities are prepared for violence on polling day. They put in place mobile polling stations which can be rushed into use if there is bomb damage to scheduled poll buildings. Two days before the referendum a British soldier, Guardsman Anton Brown of the 2nd Battalion, Coldstream Guards, is shot dead in Belfast as the army searches for weapons and explosives which can be used to disrupt the upcoming referendum.

Violence by both Republican and Loyalist paramilitaries still takes place on polling day. The Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA) explode several bombs across Northern Ireland and shoot dead a British soldier guarding a polling station in the area of the Falls Road in Belfast. The Ulster Defence Association (UDA) abducts and kills a Catholic civilian from Ballymurphy. A polling station in East Belfast guarded by the Ulster Defence Regiment (UDR) is also raided by Loyalist paramilitaries who steal several self-loading rifles.

As a political response to the referendum, the Provisional Irish Republican Army also plants four car bombs in London that day, two of which detonate, causing one death and injuring over two hundred.

The vote results in an overwhelming majority of those who voted stating they wish to remain in the UK. The nationalist boycott contributes to a turnout of only 58.7% of the electorate. In addition to taking a majority of votes cast, the UK option receives the support of 57.5% of the total electorate. According to the BBC, less than 1% of the Catholic population turn out to vote.

The referendum electorate consists of 1,030,084 adults registered to vote out of a total population of approximately 1,529,993.

The Government of the United Kingdom takes no action on receipt of the referendum result, as the result is in favour of the status quo (Northern Ireland remaining part of the UK). It is followed by an Assembly election on June 28, 1973.

Brian Faulkner, who had been the sixth and last Prime Minister of Northern Ireland, claims the result leaves “no doubt in any one’s mind what the wishes of Ulster’s people are. Despite an attempted boycott by some, almost 600,000 electors voted for the maintenance of the union with Great Britain.” He also claims that the poll showed that a “quarter of the [N.I.] Catholic population who voted … voted for the maintenance of the union” and that the result is a “blow … against IRA mythology.”

(Pictured: Map of Northern Ireland (yellow) within the United Kingdom.)


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Operation Flavius

Operation Flavius (also referred to as the Gibraltar killings) is a military operation in which three members of the Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA), Seán Savage, Daniel McCann and Mairéad Farrell, are shot dead by the British Special Air Service (SAS) in Gibraltar on March 6, 1988.

The trio is believed to be planning a car bomb attack on British military personnel in Gibraltar. They are shot dead while leaving the territory, having parked a car. All three are found to be unarmed, and no bomb is discovered in the car, leading to accusations that the British government conspired to murder them. An inquest in Gibraltar rules that the authorities had acted lawfully but the European Court of Human Rights holds that, although there had been no conspiracy, the planning and control of the operation is so flawed as to make the use of lethal force almost inevitable. The deaths are the first in a chain of violent events in a fourteen-day period. On March 16, the funeral of the three IRA members is attacked, leaving three mourners dead. At the funeral of one, two British soldiers are murdered after driving into the procession in error.

In late 1987, British authorities become aware of an IRA plan to detonate a bomb outside the governor’s residence in Gibraltar. On the day of the shootings, Savage, a known IRA member, is seen parking a car near the assembly area for the parade. Fellow members McCann and Farrell are seen crossing the border shortly afterward. As SAS personnel move to intercept the three, Savage splits from McCann and Farrell and runs south. Two soldiers pursue him while two others approach McCann and Farrell. The soldiers report seeing the IRA members make threatening movements when challenged, so the soldiers shoot them multiple times. All three are found to be unarmed, and Savage’s car does not contain a bomb.

When the bodies are searched, a set of car keys is found on Farrell. Spanish and British authorities conduct enquiries to trace the vehicle. Two days after the shootings, their enquiries lead them to a red Ford Fiesta in a car park in Marbella, fifty miles from Gibraltar. The car contains a large quantity of Semtex surrounded by 200 rounds of ammunition, along with four detonators and two timers.

The IRA notifies the McCann, Savage, and Farrell families of the deaths on the evening of March 6, and the following day publicly announces that the three were members of the IRA. A senior member of Sinn Féin, Joe Austin, is tasked with recovering the bodies. On March 9, he and Terence Farrell (Mairéad Farrell’s brother) travel to Gibraltar to identify the bodies. A charter aircraft flies the corpses to Dublin on March 14. Two thousand people wait to meet the coffins in Dublin, which are then driven north to Belfast. At the border, the Northern Irish authorities meet the procession with a large number of police and military vehicles, and insist on intervals between the hearses, causing tensions between police and members of the procession.

The joint funeral of McCann, Farrell and Savage takes place on March 16 at Milltown Cemetery in Belfast. The Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) agree to maintain a minimal presence at the funeral in exchange for guarantees from the families that there will be no salute by masked gunmen. This agreement is leaked to Michael Stone, who describes himself as a “freelance Loyalist paramilitary.” During the burial, Stone throws grenades into the crowd and begins shooting with an automatic pistol, injuring 60 people. Several mourners chase Stone, throwing rocks and shouting abuse. Stone continues shooting and throwing grenades at his pursuers, killing three of them. He is chased onto a road and his pursuers beat him until the RUC arrive to extract and arrest him.

Two months after the shootings, the documentary “Death on the Rock” is broadcast on British television. Using reconstructions and eyewitness accounts, it presents the possibility that the three IRA members had been unlawfully killed.

The inquest into the deaths begins in September 1988. The authorities state that the IRA team had been tracked to Málaga, where they were lost by the Spanish police, and that the three did not re-emerge until Savage was seen parking his car in Gibraltar. The soldiers testify that they believed the suspected bombers had been reaching for weapons or a remote detonator. Several eyewitnesses recall seeing the three shot without warning, with their hands up, or while they were on the ground. One witness, who told “Death on the Rock” he saw a soldier fire at Savage repeatedly while he was on the ground, retracts his statement at the inquest, prompting an inquiry into the programme which largely vindicated it. The inquest returns a verdict of lawful killing. Dissatisfied, the families take the case to the European Court of Human Rights. Delivering its judgement in 1995, the court finds that the operation had been in violation of Article 2 of the European Convention on Human Rights as the authorities’ failure to arrest the suspects at the border, combined with the information given to the soldiers, rendered the use of lethal force almost inevitable. The decision is cited as a landmark case in the use of force by the state.

(Pictured: The three IRA members shot in Gibraltar: (l to r) Sean Savage, Mairéad Farrell, Daniel McCann, PA Archive / PA Images)


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The 1991 Cappagh Killings

The 1991 Cappagh killings, a gun attack by the loyalist Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF) in the village of Cappagh, County Tyrone, Northern Ireland, takes place on March 3, 1991. A unit of the UVF’s Mid-Ulster Brigade drive to the staunchly republican village and shoot dead three Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA) members and a Catholic civilian at Boyle’s Bar. There are allegations of collusion between the UVF and the Ulster Defence Regiment (UDR) in the shootings.

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. 58 assault 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 & Wesson revolver, 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)


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The 2006 Dublin Riots

A series of riots in Dublin on February 25, 2006, is precipitated by a proposed march down O’Connell Street of a unionist demonstration. The disturbances begin when members of the Garda Síochána attempt to disperse a group of counterdemonstrators blocking the route of the proposed march. The situation escalates as local youths join forces with the counterdemonstrators.

Love Ulster is a Unionist organisation dedicated to commemorating the Unionist victims of the Troubles in Northern Ireland. It is organised in part by Willie Frazer of Families Acting for Innocent Relatives (FAIR). It is a partisan group established to voice outrage at killings by the Republican paramilitary organisations, but is criticised for not doing the same for victims of loyalist paramilitary organisations.

The Love Ulster march in Dublin is to consist of a uniformed band, several hundred activists (including some from the Orange Order) and relatives of victims, all of whom are to march from Parnell Street north of the River Liffey, down O’Connell Street, past Trinity College Dublin (TCD) onto Nassau Street, Dawson Street and Molesworth Street, and eventually reaching Leinster House, the seat of the Oireachtas, on Kildare Street.

The march of this group in Dublin is viewed as provocative by some Irish nationalists and many Irish republicans, particularly in the context of an Orange Order march. The Orange Order is accused of being a sectarian organisation known for its anti-Catholicism. The right to march is supported by the main Irish political parties and the march is authorised by the Garda Síochána. Love Ulster had organised a similar rally in Belfast in October 2005.

At previous FAIR rallies, a picture of an Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF) member who was allegedly involved in the murder of 26 people in Dublin in the 1974 Dublin and Monaghan bombings, and who was himself killed by the Provisional Irish Republican Army in 1976, had been displayed. An organiser of the Love Ulster demonstration tells a republican newspaper that he cannot guarantee that images of the murder suspect will not be displayed during the demonstration.

Sinn Féin, an Irish republican political party, does not organise a protest and says that the march should be allowed to go ahead, calling for republicans to ignore the march. Republican Sinn Féin, a splinter political party no longer affiliated with Sinn Féin, has an organised presence.

Their protest blocks the northeastern junction of O’Connell Street and Parnell Street. The small Republican Sinn Féin group (and some activists from the Irish Republican Socialist Party) are joined by several hundred local youths. Before the violence breaks out, they chant republican chants. Several thousand bystanders are also on the scene but take no part in the subsequent rioting. When the marchers form up at the top of Parnell Square and their bands begin to play in anticipation of the start of the march, gardaí attempt to disperse the protest at around 12:45 p.m. At this point, scuffles break out between protesters and Gardaí.

After the failure of the initial garda effort to disperse the protesters, the violence escalates. The Garda Public Order Unit is deployed, and stones and metal railings are thrown at gardaí by protesters, as are fireworks, bricks, crude petrol bombs, and other missiles. As the rioting continues, the ranks of the rioters are swelled by many local teenagers who had not taken part in the initial protest. Several barricades are constructed from building materials on the street to impede the march and the Gardaí. The march is due to start at 12:30 p.m., but as the violence goes on the gardaí decide against trying to escort the marchers through O’Connell Street. At about 1:30 p.m. the assembled marchers return to the coaches that had brought them to Dublin from Northern Ireland. The three coaches are then driven to Leinster House, where a small parade is carried out, and a letter is handed to Irish Minister for Justice, Michael McDowell. They are then escorted out of the city. One of the coaches is attacked by stone throwers on the way home.

Violence continues sporadically on O’Connell Street for another hour or so. The Gardaí, advancing from the northern end of the street gradually push the rioters back southward. The most sustained violence takes place around the General Post Office building, where the rioters initially sit down in protest and then, after several of them have been batoned, regroup behind burning barricades and throw rocks, paving slabs and one or possibly two petrol bombs at Gardaí. Several Gardaí, protesters and a number of journalists from RTÉ and TV3 are injured.

While the standoff on O’Connell Street is still going on, several hundred rioters follow the Unionist coaches to the Nassau Street area where they set a number of cars on fire and damage several businesses. Further skirmishes break out around the River Liffey at O’Connell Bridge, Aston Quay, Fleet Street and Temple Bar, as the Gardaí retake O’Connell street, before the rioters disperse.

Having dispersed the rioters, the gardaí then closes O’Connell Street to facilitate a cleanup of the scene by building workers. Media reports estimate the cost of the cleanup job at €50,000, and Dublin Chamber of Commerce places loss of earnings for businesses in the city due to the riots at €10,000,000.

Estimates for the number of unionist marchers before the event are predicted to be over 1,000. However, only eight coach loads turn up in Dublin, indicating a far smaller number, possibly 300 to 400. Estimates for the number of counterdemonstrators vary between 300 and 7,000. The number is made much more difficult to determine by the presence of the several thousand bystanders at the scene who do not take part. Most of the rioters appear to be local youths, though some who brandished leaflets and other political literature are clearly political activists.

A total of 14 people, including six gardaí and a small number of journalists and photographers, are hospitalised as a result of the rioting. A further 41 people are arrested, according to RTÉ news. As of February 27, 2006, thirteen have been charged. Twenty-six people are convicted in January 2009 for their part in the disturbances and given sentences of up to five years. Two are described as “alcoholics.” One of them and a teenage boy are “homeless.” Three are not Irish – a Georgian, a Romanian and a Moldovan are convicted of looting shops on O’Connell Street. Two have travelled from County Offaly, one from County Galway and one from County Donegal for the riot. All the rest come from Dublin.

(Pictured: The Public Order Unit on O’Connell Street during the 2006 Dublin Riots)


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Death of Eamon Broy, Member of the Dublin Metropolitan Police & IRA

Eamon “Ned” Broy, successively a member of the Dublin Metropolitan Police (DMP), the Irish Republican Army (IRA), the National Army, and the Garda Síochána of the Irish Free State, dies in Rathgar, Dublin, on January 22, 1972. He serves as Commissioner of the Gardaí from February 1933 to June 1938. He later serves as president of the Olympic Council of Ireland for fifteen years.

Broy is born in Rathangan, County Kildare, on December 22, 1887. He joins the Royal Irish Constabulary (RIC) on August 2, 1910, and the Dublin Metropolitan Police on January 20, 1911.

Broy is a double agent within the DMP, with the rank of Detective Sergeant (DS). He works as a clerk inside G Division, the intelligence branch of the DMP. While there, he copies sensitive files for IRA leader Michael Collins and passes many of these files on to Collins through Thomas Gay, the librarian at Capel Street Library. On April 7, 1919, he smuggles Collins into G Division’s archives in Great Brunswick Street (now Pearse Street), enabling him to identify “G-Men,” six of whom are eventually killed by the IRA. He supports the Anglo-Irish Treaty of 1921 and joins the National Army during the Irish Civil War, reaching the rank of colonel. In 1925, he leaves the Army and joins the Garda Síochána.

Broy’s elevation to the post of Commissioner comes when Fianna Fáil replaces Cumann na nGaedheal as the government. Other more senior officers are passed over as being too sympathetic to the outgoing party.

In 1934, Broy oversees the creation of “The Auxiliary Special Branch” of the Garda, formed mainly of hastily trained anti-Treaty IRA veterans, who were opponents of Broy in the civil war. It is nicknamed the “Broy Harriers” by Broy’s opponents, a pun on the Bray Harriers athletics club or more likely on the Bray Harriers hunt club. It is used first against the quasi-fascist Blueshirts, and later against the diehard holdouts of the IRA, now set against former comrades. The “Broy Harriers” nickname persists into the 1940s, even though Broy himself is no longer in command, and for the bodies targeted by the unit is a highly abusive term, still applied by radical Irish republicans to the Garda Special Branch (now renamed the Special Detective Unit). The Broy Harriers engage in several controversial fatal shootings. They shoot dead a protesting farmer named Lynch in Cork, and when the matter is discussed in the Senate in 1934, the members who support Éamon de Valera‘s government walk out. They are detested by sections of the farming community. In the light of this latter history, their name is often used in reference to individuals or groups who attempt to disrupt contemporary dissident republicans, such as the remnants of the Provisional Irish Republican Army.

Broy is President of the Olympic Council of Ireland from 1935 to 1950. He is also a member of the Standing Committee of the Irish Amateur Handball Association.

Broy dies on January 22, 1972, at his residence in the Dublin suburb of Rathgar.

On September 17, 2016, a memorial to Broy is unveiled in Coolegagen Cemetery, County Offaly, close to his childhood home. His daughter Áine is in attendance, as are representatives of the government, the Air Corps, and the Garda Síochana.

Neil Jordan‘s film Michael Collins (1996) inaccurately depicts Broy (played by actor Stephen Rea) as having been arrested, tortured and killed by Secret Intelligence Service (SIS) agents. In addition, G Division was based not in Dublin Castle, as indicated in the film, but in Great Brunswick Street. Collins had a different agent in the Castle, David Neligan. Broy is also mentioned and makes an appearance in Michael Russell’s detective novel The City of Shadows, set partly in Dublin in the 1930s, published by HarperCollins in 2012.


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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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The Reavey and O’Dowd Killings

The Reavey and O’Dowd killings are two coordinated gun attacks on January 4, 1976, in County Armagh, Northern Ireland. Six Catholic civilians die after members of the Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF), an Ulster loyalist paramilitary group, break into their homes and shoot them. Three members of the Reavey family are shot at their home in Whitecross and four members of the O’Dowd family are shot at their home in Ballydougan. Two of the Reaveys and three of the O’Dowds are killed outright, with the third Reavey victim dying of brain hemorrhage almost a month later.

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.

The shootings are part of a string of attacks on Catholics and Irish nationalists by the “Glenanne gang,” an alliance of loyalist militants, rogue British soldiers and Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) police officers. Billy McCaughey, an officer from the Special Patrol Group (SPG), admits taking part and accuses another officer of involvement. His colleague John Weir says those involved include a British soldier, two police officers and an alleged police agent, Robin “the Jackal” Jackson.

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.