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Death of Gerard Steenson, Leader of the IPLO

Gerard Steenson, an Irish republican paramilitary and a leader of the Irish People’s Liberation Organisation during the Troubles, is killed in an ambush in Ballymurphy, Belfast, on March 14, 1987.

Steenson, a Catholic and the son of Frank Steenson, is born in 1957 and raised in heavily republican West Belfast. He is nicknamed “Doctor Death” by the media and the Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) for the multiple assassinations he purportedly accomplishes according to The New York Times. However, Fortnight alleges that he got his nickname after he dressed up in a white coat to attack British soldiers guarding a patient at the Royal Victoria Hospital.

Steenson is widely associated with internecine violence between Irish republican groups. He joins the Official Irish Republican Army‘s Belfast Brigade in 1972 at the age of 14, becoming part of the Brigade’s C Company. Two years later, he leaves to join the Irish National Liberation Army (INLA) upon that paramilitary group’s formation, consequent to their split from the Official IRA. He becomes head of the INLA in Belfast.

Steenson first comes to notoriety as a teenager in 1975 for killing Billy McMillen, the Official IRA’s Belfast leader, during the feud between the INLA and the Official IRA. Jim Cusack, a journalist describes him as the “assassin-in-chief” of Hugh Torney.

During the 1981 Northern Ireland local elections, Steenson and Seán Mackin both lead efforts within the INLA to obstruct Irish Republican Socialist Party (IRSP) candidates which disrupts their votes, viewing the decision to run in the election as wasteful, believing that the allocated resources would be better spent on weapons. Following the election, Steenson later changes his mind with regards to elections, declaring that the party should have run more candidates.

In December 1981, Steenson, fearing that the Dublin INLA leadership will make a move on him following his efforts to set up a parallel organisation, plans an assassination attempt on the Dublin leader, Harry Flynn. Following a meeting of the Ard Comhairle on December 5, Flynn and others go out for drinks in the Flowing Tide pub at the corner of Sackville Place and Marlborough Street in Dublin. Shortly before 11 p.m., Steenson’s gunman enters the pub and fires shots at Flynn before his gun jams and he flees. Though seriously wounded, Flynn survives. After the botched assassination attempt, Steenson then unsuccessfully threatens Seán Flynn for his seat on Belfast City Council. Later, on January 25, 1982, a botched attempt is also made on Seán Flynn and Bernard Dorrian at a bar in the Short Strand area, provoking a feud where a unit from the Derry INLA comes to Belfast searching for Steenson. Failing to secure power, the attacks only demoralise the IRSP and INLA and begin a trend of internal feuds.

In 1985, Steenson is convicted of 67 terrorist offences (including six murders) after his former friend, Harry Kirkpatrick, testifies against him. Kirkpatrick and Steenson are rarely seen apart in public and are given the nicknames “Pinkie and Perky.”

In 1986, Steenson, Jimmy Brown, and Martin “Rook” O’Prey form the Irish People’s Liberation Organisation (IPLO), consisting of disaffected and expelled INLA members, with the express intention of wiping out the INLA and IRSP and replacing them with their own organisation. He argues in letters, written while he is in prison in the early 1980s, that the INLA has become militarily “inefficient” and that the IRSP leadership has become “ineffective” and requires “realignment.”

Steenson is involved in the Rosnaree Hotel shooting on January 20, 1987, where a meeting between the leadership of the INLA and IPLO is to take place to end hostilities. However, IPLO members ambush the four INLA members at the hotel, killing Thomas “Ta” Power and John “Jap” O’Reilly, while Hugh Torney and Peter Stewart manage to escape.

Steenson is viewed highly in the movement with Brown calling him a “committed and highly efficient military activist and a dedicated revolutionary.” However, he is described by Lord Justice Carswell as “a most dangerous and sinister terrorist. A ruthless and highly dedicated, resourceful and indefatigable planner of criminal exploits who did not hesitate to take a leading role in assassinations and other crimes.” Henry McDonald and Jack Holland write, “Both his friends and enemies spoke in a tone of awestruck at his paramilitary abilities.” Ken Wharton refers to him as a “notorious psychopath.” Sean O’Callaghan describes him as someone who “never took to orders.”

Terry George writes of Steenson that he “was extremely clever and even wittier than Billy McMillan. He had an angelic face and women adored him. He was also ruthless, cunning and fearless.”

On March 14, 1987, Steenson and Tony “Boot” McCarthy return to Ballymurphy after a night of drinking which is cut short by anger over the INLA GHQ faction’s show of force in the Divis Flats earlier in the day. After bringing their car to a stop on Springhill Avenue, they are killed in an ambush by an INLA active unit, with a member of the unit closing the security gate at the top of the street to trap the pair. An INLA spokesperson says Steenson was killed for being “actively involved in continuous and concerted efforts to undermine the authority of the … movement.” Jimmy Brown gives the graveside oration.

The IPLO later kills Emmanuel Gargan in the Hatfield Bar on the Lower Ormeau Road and Kevin Barry Duffy in Armagh, County Armagh, in retaliation for the killing of Steenson. The IPLO draws the ire of the Lower Ormeau community through the circumstances surrounding the killing of Gargan, with graffiti appearing in the area labeled “IPLOscum.”

On Halloween 1992, the Provisional Irish Republican Army carries out a large-scale operation (dubbed the “Night of Long Knives”) with the goal of neutralising the IPLO. Following the operation and execution of Jimmy Brown, both the Belfast Brigade and Army Council factions disband.


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Birth of Charles McGuinness, Sailor & Adventurer

Charles John McGuinness, sailor and adventurer, is born on March 6, 1893, in Derry, County Londonderry.

McGuinness is the elder of two sons of John McGuinness, sea captain and harbourmaster who is born in the United States, and Margaret McGuinness (née Hernand) from Donegal, County Donegal.

In 1908, at the age of 15, McGuinness leaves home, stowing away in a ship and traveling extensively throughout the world for several years. At the age of 17 he is involved in the first of several shipwrecks, drifting for two weeks on a lifeboat before being rescued near Tahiti. He works as a pearl fisher in the South Seas for a year before resuming his nautical career.

In 1913, McGuinness travels through Canada, working as a panhandler and briefly joining the Canadian Militia. In August 1914, following the outbreak of World War I, he joins the British navy, serving in Admiral Reginald Bacon‘s Dover Patrol and in Cameroon. After learning of the 1916 Easter Rising, he deserts the British navy but later joins the South African Army, in which he fights in east Africa. He is captured by the German Schutztruppe of Colonel Paul von Lettow-Vorbeck but manages to escape by trekking through the jungle.

Disillusioned with the war, McGuinness resumes his travels. In 1920, he returns to Derry and joins the Irish Republican Army (IRA), leading a flying column in northwest Ireland. McGuinness, who reputedly introduces the first monkey to Derry, is viewed locally as an eccentric adventurer but is much celebrated for his instrumental role in the daring escape of Frank Carty, the IRA Sligo Brigade commander, from Derry jail.

Wanted for the murder of Inspector Robert Johnson in Glasgow, a charge he denies, McGuinness is captured by the British army in June 1921 after a failed bank raid in Glenties, County Donegal, but escapes from Derry’s Ebrington Barracks before his identity is established. Shortly after the truce in July 1921 he is sent by Liam Mellows to Germany, from where he smuggles arms to Ireland. After the treaty split, he continues to smuggle arms for the republican side but leaves the IRA, having become disillusioned with its incompetence. He claims to have been arrested in Berlin in 1922 for conspiring with Bulgarian revolutionaries, and released on condition that he leaves the state.

McGuinness emigrates to New York in 1923 where, following an alleged spell of employment by Chiang Kai-shek‘s forces in China, he establishes himself as a building contractor. In 1928, he joins Admiral Richard E. Byrd‘s expedition to the Antarctic, serving as a navigation officer. At a reception on his return in 1929, he presents the mayor of New York City, Jimmy Walker, with an Irish tricolour which, he claims, Byrd had flown over the South Pole. He is not, as he claims, awarded a congressional medal by the secretary of the navy.

In 1930, McGuinness embarks on a new career, smuggling rum between Canada and the United States (his memoirs of which are subsequently published in the American press under the pseudonym “Night-Hawk”). After losing his fortune when his boat and cargo are impounded in the summer of 1931, he travels to the Soviet Union to observe communism at first hand. He remains in the Soviet Union around two years, where he claims to work as a harbourmaster in Murmansk, and forms an unfavourable opinion of the Soviet Union.

McGuinness’s autobiography, Nomad, is published in 1934. His publisher, Methuen Publishing, is sued for considerable damages by the notorious Alderman John William Nixon, MP, as a result of McGuinness’s veiled reference to him as the former Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) detective inspector who led a murder gang in Belfast in 1922, believed responsible for the murder of the McMahon family.

In late 1936, McGuinness joins the International Brigades in the Spanish Civil War but soon deserts after disagreements with the authorities. He returns to Ireland, where he pens a sensational exposé of the International Brigades, I fought with the Reds, which is published by the Irish Independent. He also writes colourful accounts of life under communism, such as Behind the Iron Curtain, under the pseudonym “Peter Dawson.”

In 1942, while serving as chief petty officer in the marine service at Haulbowline, McGuinness offers to assist the German legation by smuggling spies out of Ireland. Despite his British naval service, he is virulently anti-British. According to local legend he has the sole of both feet tattooed with the Union Jack so wherever he goes he is safe in the knowledge that he is “trampling on the butcher’s apron.” He is arrested and sentenced to seven years imprisonment but is released shortly after the end of the Emergency.

McGuinness is believed to have died on December 4, 1947, when he supposedly drowns alongside four other crew members of the schooner Isaalt that he is piloting on Ballymoney Strand near Gorey, County Wexford. Two members of the crew survive, managing to swim ashore, the ship is a mere 100 metres from land. However, members of McGuinness’ family express doubt over the years. A nephew claims to have encountered McGuinness on the London Underground in 1955. Upon their gazes meeting, McGuinness is reported to smile and say four simple words: “You never saw me.”

(From: “McGuinness, Charles John” by Fearghal McGarry, Dictionary of Irish Biography, http://www.dib.ie, October 2009)


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The Abercorn Restaurant Bombing

The Abercorn Restaurant bombing is a bomb attack that takes place in a crowded city centre restaurant and bar in Belfast, Northern Ireland, on March 4, 1972. The bomb explosion claims the lives of two young women and injures over 130 people. Many of the injuries are severe and include the loss of limbs and eyes. The Provisional Irish Republican Army is blamed, although no organisation ever claims responsibility and nobody is ever charged in connection with the bombing. According to Ed Moloney, an Irish journalist who has written extensively about the IRA, republican sources have unofficially confirmed the group’s involvement.

The Abercorn is on 7-11 Castle Lane in central Belfast and houses a ground-floor restaurant and upstairs bar. It is owned by 45-year-old Bill O’Hara, a Catholic businessman. On Saturday, March 4 1972, it is packed with late afternoon shoppers when an anonymous caller issues a bomb warning to 999 at 4:28 p.m. The caller does not give a precise location, but advises that a bomb will go off in Castle Lane in five minutes’ time. The street, located in the busy Cornmarket area, mills with crowds of people shopping and browsing as is typical on a Saturday in Belfast.

Two minutes later, at 4:30 p.m., a handbag containing a five-pound gelignite bomb explodes under a table inside the ground-floor restaurant. Two young Catholic friends are killed outright: Anne Owens (22), who is employed at the Electricity Board, and Janet Bereen (21), a hospital radiographer. The young women have been out shopping together and have stopped at the Abercorn to have coffee. They are seated at the table nearest the bomb and take the full force of the blast. Owens had survived a previous bombing at her workplace. More than 130 are injured in the explosion, which overturns tables and chairs, and brings the ceiling crashing down onto the ground floor restaurant. Many people are severely maimed. Some have their limbs blown off while others suffer terrible head and facial injuries, burns, deep cuts and perforated eardrums. Three have eyes destroyed by shards of flying glass. Two sisters, Jennifer and Rosaleen McNern (one of whom is due to be married), are both horrifically mutilated. Jennifer loses both legs and Rosaleen, the bride-to-be, loses her legs, right arm and one eye.

Witnesses describe a scene of panic and chaos as the bloodied survivors stumble through the smoke, broken glass, blood, and rubble, crawling over one another to get away, while firemen attempt to bring out the injured, many of whom lay with their bodies mangled, unable to move. A Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) officer is one of the first people to arrive on the scene. He describes the carnage that greets him as something he will never forget. “All you could hear was the moaning and squealing and the people with limbs torn from their bodies.”

A woman who had been inside the restaurant before the blast later tells an inquest that she had seen two teenaged girls walk out of the Abercorn leaving a handbag behind shortly before the explosion. This same woman was waiting at a bus stop when the bomb went off. A detective-sergeant establishes that the explosion’s epicentre is to the right of the table where the two girls had been sitting. The bomb is reportedly left behind inside a handbag.

Nobody is ever charged in connection with the bombing and no paramilitary organisation ever claims responsibility for it. Both wings of the IRA deny involvement and condemn the bombing. However, the RUC and British Military Intelligence blame the Provisional IRA First Battalion Belfast Brigade and it is now widely accepted that it was responsible. There is a public backlash against the organisation in Irish nationalist and Catholic areas such as West Belfast. The two dead women were both Catholic, along with many of the injured including the McNern sisters, and the Abercorn Bar was a popular venue with many young Catholics and nationalists.

Provisional IRA Chief of Staff Seán Mac Stíofáin claims the bombing is the work of loyalist paramilitaries. According to Mac Stíofáin, the Woodvale Defence Association (WDA) had made threats against the Abercorn in its weekly newsletter after the Abercorn management refused to play the British national anthem. The WDA denies the allegations, adding that one of its members had a friend who was badly injured in the blast. The day after the bombing, a leaflet allegedly circulated by the loyalist Vanguard Unionist Progressive Party (VUPP) declares: “We make no apologies for Abercorn. No apologies were made for Aldershot […] These premises were being used extensively by Southern Irish shoppers for the transmission of information vital to the terrorist campaign…” Vanguard leader Rev. Martin Smyth dismisses the statement as fake.

According to Ed Moloney in his book Voices from the Grave, IRA sources have since confirmed, albeit unofficially, that the Provisional IRA was responsible. Moloney suggests that, based on eyewitness accounts, two teenaged IRA girls were probably the bombers. Unnamed republican sources suggest that the Abercorn was targeted because the upstairs bar was frequented by off-duty British Army soldiers.

The detonation of a bomb in a city centre restaurant on a Saturday afternoon packed with shoppers, and the severity of the injuries—inflicted on mostly women and children—ensures that the attack causes much revulsion and leaves a lasting impression on the people of Belfast. It is condemned by both unionist and Irish nationalist politicians and also by church leaders. Ian Paisley calls on the government “to mobilise and arm every able-bodied volunteer to meet the enemy.” The extent of the injuries the blast inflicts results in the Royal Victoria Hospital implementing a “disaster plan” for the first time.

The sculptor F. E. McWilliam produces a series of bronzes (1972–73) known as Women of Belfast in response to the Abercorn bombing.

Unrelated to the bombing, the Abercorn features in a sectarian attack in July 1972, when Michael McGuigan, a Catholic working in the bar, is abducted by loyalist paramilitaries, shot and left for dead, but survives. He had been dating a Protestant waitress who also worked in the Abercorn, which is why the loyalist group targets him.

The Abercorn is demolished in 2007.

(Pictured: A victim’s body being removed from the scene by members of the security forces following the bomb explosion)


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The Mullacreevie Ambush

The Mullacreevie ambush takes place on March 1, 1991, when a mobile patrol of the Ulster Defence Regiment (UDR) composed of two Land Rover Defender vehicles is attacked with an improvised horizontal mortar by a Provisional Irish Republican Army active service unit from the North Armagh Brigade while passing near Mullacreevie housing estate, on the west side of Armagh, County Armagh, Northern Ireland. One member of the UDR is killed instantly when the leading Land Rover is hit, while another dies of wounds two days later. Two other soldiers are maimed for life.

According to author Tony Geraghty, British authorities learn of the first horizontal mortar produced by the Provisional IRA, the Mark 12, in 1985. The weapon is recovered after an incident in which three IRA volunteers are killed by security forces. The launcher suffers from the limitation of a heavy recoil, which makes the handling of the device difficult. One British intelligence report says that while the launcher is quite crude, the grenade is made of “a number of components which require a high standard of machine manufacturing.” The projectile has a warhead of 40 ounces (1.1 kg) of Semtex and TNT. It is used basically as a standoff weapon, in which the grenade is lofted over the security bases’ fences or against armoured vehicles. The mortar has an effective range of 70 yards, within which it can pierce an armour plate or destroy a sangar.

Later in the conflict the IRA develops the Mark 16, a new version with improved armour-piercing capabilities, usually referred to as a “projected recoilless improvised grenade.”

On the evening of March 1, 1991, a two-vehicle mobile patrol belonging to the 2nd Battalion, Ulster Defence Regiment is approaching the western outskirts of Armagh on Killylea road. When driving along Mullacreevie housing estate, the two Land Rovers are held by temporary traffic lights at roadworks. Unknown to them, an IRA unit from the North Armagh Brigade has set a Mark 12 launcher on a hump of earth in the front garden of a house beside the lights. After the incident, IRA sources describe the device as a “directional missile.”

When the first Land Rover pulls off after the lights turn green, the mortar ‘s improvised grenade is fired by command-wire from the backyard of the house by IRA members concealed behind a digger. The projectile hits the coachwork, blowing away both sides and the roof of the military vehicle. Witnesses report that the Land Rover was “ripped apart.” The soldiers inside are immediately assisted by fellow UDR members, who help to drag the wounded out of the shattered wreckage.

Private Paul Sutcliffe, a 32-year-old Englishman who has served for four years with the Duke of Wellington’s Regiment before becoming a UDR soldier in 1989, dies on the spot. The driver, Private Roger Love, a 20-year-old from Portadown, succumbs to his injuries three days later. Two other servicemen are maimed by the explosion. One of them suffers severe chest wounds, and loses the use of one arm; the other has a leg amputated below the knee.

The ambush at Mullacreevie is the first time that a Mark 12 mortar is used successfully.

Roger Love’s family donates the deceased soldier’s kidneys after they authorize the medical staff to disconnect the life-supporting machine. A UDR party attends Paul Sutcliffe’s funeral at his hometown of Barrowford, Lancashire, the only UDR military funeral held outside Northern Ireland. His ashes are scattered in the Mourne Mountains.

Another horizontal mortar attack on a UDR mobile patrol takes place on November 6, when Private Michael Boxall is killed in Bellaghy, County Londonderry, after the Land Rover he is riding on is hit by a Mark 12 grenade. A fellow soldier loses one eye in the attack. Incidentally, constable Erik Clarke, another Englishmen who had also served in the British Army in Northern Ireland from 1973 to 1978, is killed that year by the same kind of weapon while riding on a combined Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) – British Army mobile patrol in an early Mark 12 attack. The incident takes place on September 17 at Swatragh, County Londonderry. Clarke had married a local woman and later joined the RUC.

The Mark 12 mortar is used by the IRA until 1993, when it is superseded by the Mark 16. The Mark 16 is fired on eleven occasions by the IRA from late 1993 to early 1994.


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1978 British Army Gazelle Helicopter Downing

On February 17, 1978, a British Army Aérospatiale Gazelle helicopter, serial number XX404, goes down near Jonesborough, County Armagh, Northern Ireland, after being fired at by a Provisional Irish Republican Army unit from the South Armagh Brigade. The IRA unit is involved at the time in a gun battle with a Royal Green Jackets observation post deployed in the area, and the helicopter is sent in to support the ground troops. The helicopter crashes after the pilot loses control of the aircraft while evading ground fire.

Lieutenant Colonel Ian Douglas Corden-Lloyd, 2nd Battalion Green Jackets commanding officer, dies in the crash. The incident is overshadowed in the press by the La Mon restaurant bombing, which takes place just hours later near Belfast.

By early 1978, the British Army forces involved in Operation Banner have recently replaced their aging Bell H-13 Sioux helicopters for the more versatile Aérospatiale Gazelles. The introduction of the new machines increases the area covered on a reconnaissance sortie as well as the improved time spent in airborne missions. In the same period, the Provisional IRA receives its first consignment of M60 machine guns from the Middle East, which are displayed by masked volunteers during a Bloody Sunday commemoration in Derry. Airborne operations are crucial for the British presence along the border, especially in south County Armagh, where the level of IRA activity means that every supply and soldier has to be ferried in and out of their bases by helicopter since 1975.

The Royal Green Jackets have been in South Armagh since December 1977, and have already seen some action. Just a few days after arrival, two mortar rounds hit the C Company base at Forkhill, injuring a number of soldiers. In the aftermath of the attack, two Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) officers are wounded by a booby trap while recovering the lorry where the mortar tubes are mounted. Two days later, a patrol near the border suffers a bomb and gun attack, leaving the commanding sergeant with severe head wounds. The sergeant is picked up from the scene by helicopter. He is later invalided from the British Army as a result of his injuries.

On January 17, 1978, a Royal Green Jackets observation post deployed around the village of Jonesborough begins to take heavy fire from the “March Wall,” which draws parallel with the Irish border to the east, along the Dromad woods. The soldiers return fire, but the short distance to the border and the open ground prevents them from advancing.

The Commanding Officer, Lieutenant Colonel Ian Corden-Lloyd, along with Captain Philip Schofield and Sergeant Ives fly from the battalion base at Bessbrook Mill to assess the situation and provide information to the troops. They are escorted by a Scout helicopter with an Airborne Reaction Force (ARF), comprising a medic and three soldiers from the 2nd Battalion Light Infantry. While hovering over the scene of the engagement, the Aérospatiale Gazelle receives a barrage of 7.62 mm tracer rounds. The pilot loses control of the aircraft during a turn at high speed to avoid the stream of fire. The Aérospatiale Gazelle hits a wall and crashes in a field, some 2 km from Jonesborough. According to the crew and passengers of the Scout, the Aérospatiale Gazelle hits the ground twice after losing power, with its rotor blades trashing into the soil following the second impact, and then cartwheels across the field. The Scout lands the ARF while still under IRA fire. The soldiers rush to the wrecked helicopter, some 100 metres away from the site of the initial crash.

Corden-Lloyd is killed and the other two passengers are wounded. The machine comes to rest on its right side. The pilot remains trapped inside the wreckage, but he survives thanks to his helmet. The IRA later claim they had shot at the helicopter with an M60 machine gun. The IRA unit vanishes into the Dromad woods to the Republic of Ireland. Some Gardaí witness the attack from the other side of the border.

The gun battle and Aérospatiale Gazelle shootdown is displaced from the headlines by the deaths of twelve civilians in the La Mon restaurant bombing on the same day, some of whom are burned to death. Initially the British Army downplays the IRA’s claim as published by An Phoblacht, that the helicopter was shot down, on the basis that no hits were found on the wreckage, but finally they acknowledged that the IRA action had caused the crash.

The death of Corden-Lloyd, a former Special Air Service officer, is deeply regretted by the British Army, who regarded him as promising. He is awarded a posthumous mentioned in despatches “in recognition of gallant and distinguished service in Northern Ireland.” In 1973, Irish republicans had accused Corden-Lloyd and his subordinates of brutality against Belfast Catholics during an earlier tour of the Royal Green Jackets in 1971, at the time of Operation Demetrius.


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Birth of Charles Harding Smith, Loyalist & UDA Leader

Charles Harding Smith, a Northern Irish loyalist and the first effective leader of the Ulster Defence Association (UDA), is born in Belfast, Northern Ireland, on January 24, 1931. An important figure in the Belfast-based “defence associations” that form the basis of the UDA on its formation in 1971, he later becomes embroiled in feuds with other UDA leaders and is eventually driven out of Northern Ireland by his opponents.

A former soldier in the British Army, Smith, at the time residing in Rosebank Street on the Shankill Road, calls a meeting of other locals at the Leopold Street Pigeon Fanciers Club to develop a response to attacks by republicans from the neighboring Ardoyne area. The location is chosen because Smith is himself a pigeon fancier and a member of the club. At the meeting, it is agreed to establish a vigilante group, the Woodvale Defence Association (WDA), with Smith in command and assisted by Davy Fogel, who organises military drilling for the forty or so recruits, and Ernie Elliott.

The WDA gains widespread notoriety and is blamed for a series of bomb attacks and shootings, most of which have been carried out by the Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF). Nevertheless, Smith’s reputation as a hardline loyalist is boosted as a result and when his group merges with other similar vigilante movements to form the Ulster Defence Association (UDA) in late 1971, he is chosen as chairman of the new group’s thirteen-member Security Council ahead of the other leading candidates, Tommy Herron and Jim Anderson. According to journalist Martin Dillon, Smith is heavily influenced by William Craig and William McGrath, both of whom see a need for a group to replace the Ulster Special Constabulary (USC) and feel that they can easily influence Smith to their way of thinking.

Smith soon takes charge of procuring arms for the UDA. In early 1972, working in tandem with Belfast businessman John Campbell who agrees to bankroll the purchases, he is put in contact with a Scottish arms dealer from whom he is to purchase £50,000 worth of weapons. He sends three WDA associates, John White, Bobby Dalzell, and Robert Lusty (who is also a serving officer in the Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC)), to meet the arms dealer in a London hotel, following them without attending the actual meeting. The “arms dealer” is actually an RUC Special Branch agent and, after recording the conversation with the WDA men, arrests all three. Smith goes to Scotland Yard the same day to inquire about his friends only to be arrested himself.

Smith remains in custody in England until December 1972 when his case comes to trial. Campbell claims that the deal had been organised for the RUC to entrap the arms dealer, whom they believe to be a Provisional Irish Republican Army member and a series of mistakes by the prosecution helps to ensure that the case collapses with Smith acquitted. The trial is used as part of early arguments regarding collusion between the RUC and loyalists as a list of RUC Special Branch suspects is uncovered in Smith’s house while he attempts to call Chief Constable Graham Shillington as a character witness.

By the time Smith returns to Belfast in December 1972 there has been changes in the UDA with Tommy Herron in effective control of the organisation and Davy Fogel the dominant figure amongst the WDA. He immediately takes back control of his west Belfast stronghold, threatening Fogel with death if he does not fall into line. Fogel, a close ally of Ernie Elliott, who was killed in circumstances that Smith had been rumoured to be involved in, although it is later determined that Elliott was shot dead after a drunken brawl on Sandy Row had descended into a gunfight, decides it is best not to go up against Smith and stands down.

However, Smith is not satisfied and, after putting out intelligence that Fogel has been taking UDA funds for himself, arrests Fogel and holds him captive for three hours in a Shankill social club where he is told to leave the area. Fogel briefly leaves for east Belfast but when the UDA there makes it clear he is not welcome either he leaves to live in England, from where he controversially gives an interview about his time in the UDA to The Sunday Times. Among claims made by Fogel in this interview is one that Smith was attempting to take control of the UDA with the help of the UVF. Smith is a strong admirer of the UVF’s military structure and hopes to replicate it in the UDA but he has a deep dislike of UVF leader Gusty Spence. As part of his remit to instill military discipline, Smith moves against a culture of racketeering that has become endemic in the west Belfast UDA during his absence. It is this initiative that leads to the rumours concerning his involvement in the death of Elliott, who had been named by some of his rivals in the UDA as a gangster.

Despite Smith’s show of strength following his return to Belfast his public persona remains low-key, with Herron fast emerging as the public face of the UDA. Much of this is down to the fact that Smith is inarticulate and unable to project a good image, unlike Herron who is a good talker and fairly charismatic. The emergence of these two leaders at the same time however is to bring the fledgling movement into near civil war.

Following a period of marginalisation Jim Anderson, who is serving as caretaker leader of the UDA, resigns as chairman of the UDA and as a result a meeting is called of the group’s leaders in March 1973 to determine who will succeed him. By this time Smith and Herron are recognised as the undisputed leaders of the Belfast UDA. There is a fear that whichever of the two is chosen as chairman, the other one will automatically feel obliged to challenge his leadership. As a result, it is determined that someone else should be appointed chairman as a compromise candidate and as Highfield-based activist Andy Tyrie, a man noted for his skill as an organiser, is chairing the conference it is decided that he will be acceptable to both men as chairman of the UDA. Tyrie soon proves to be a powerful rival to the two leaders. In September 1973, Herron is kidnapped and shot dead. His murder remains unsolved.

Tyrie had not proven to be the puppet Smith had hoped and had consolidated his power through his close involvement with Glenn Barr and the Ulster Workers’ Council during the strike of May 1974, an event that had helped to give real credence to Tyrie’s leadership abilities. Fearing the growing power of Tyrie, Smith criticises the UDA leader for sending a delegation to Libya to meet Muammar Gaddafi, who is a hated figure for many loyalists due to his providing arms to the Provisional Irish Republican Army. Smith, who had known about the trip in advance but had raised no objections, verbally attacks Tyrie over the Libya debacle in a meeting of the Inner Council in December 1974 before declaring the following January that he intends to split his West Belfast Brigade from the rest of the UDA.

Two weeks after announcing the schism, Smith is attending a meeting at the West Belfast UDA’s headquarters with Tommy Lyttle when he notices a sniper on a nearby roof. Smith, who is wearing a bulletproof vest, opens his coat as if to challenge the sniper to fire but is seriously wounded when the sniper shoots twice, hitting him both times with armour-piercing bullets. With Smith in hospital, Tyrie calls a meeting of the leading figures in the Shankill UDA and manages to convince Lyttle and other leading figures that Smith is too divisive a figure to remain in charge.

Smith is out of the hospital after only two weeks and declares himself back in charge, but before long he has fallen foul of a number of important people. Two Shankill UDA members are interned on the basis of evidence that rumours suggest had come from Smith, while he also clashed with the local UVF after suggesting that they merge but only on the basis that he will be in control. He begins to make threats against Barr and Chicken, two popular members who are leading figures on the UDA’s political side. Smith calls a meeting of his commanders, but, on February 6, 1975, in an attack arranged in advance by his opponents within the UDA, a gunman bursts in and shoots him twice in the chest. The gunman walks up to the injured Smith and prepares to shoot him in the head but the gun jams and he again survives an attempt on his life.

Smith spends another week in hospital after which he again returns to his Belfast home. Loyalist Davy Payne is sent to his house with another hitman and the two order Smith to leave Northern Ireland. He is taken to the airport the following day and leaves for England, leaving Tyrie as sole leader of the UDA. He settles in Southowram, West Yorkshire, where he works as a lorry driver before his death in 1997. During Dáil Éireann debates in 2005 he is named as a “self-confessed British intelligence agent.”


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NI Prime Minister Terence O’Neill Meets Taoiseach Jack Lynch

Prime Minister of Northern Ireland Terence O’Neill calls on the Taoiseach Jack Lynch at Iveagh House in Dublin on January 8, 1968. There is no advance publicity, largely to ensure that Ian Paisley is not able to upstage the meeting with his antics. The dozen reporters present are impressed at the friendly informality.

”How are you, Jack?” O’Neill says as he gets out of the car, extending his hand to the Taoiseach.

O’Neill is accompanied by his wife, Jean, and a number of officials. They have lunch in Iveagh House with the Taoiseach and his wife, Maureen, together with a number of official staff, and five of Lynch’s cabinet colleagues and their wives. The ministers are Tánaiste Frank Aiken, Minister for Finance Charles Haughey, Minister for Industry and Commerce George Colley, Minister for Agriculture and Fisheries Neil Blaney, and Minister for Transport and Power Erskine Childers.

The official statement at the end of the four-hour meeting states that progress has been made in “areas of consultation and co-operation.” The Taoiseach says they discussed industry, tourism, electricity supply, and trade, as well as tariff concessions, and “measures taken by both governments to prevent the spread of foot-and-mouth disease from Britain.”

Afterward, O’Neill returns to Northern Ireland by a different route in order to avoid any possible demonstration. Paisley has been developing a high profile for himself with his attacks on O’Neill in recent months. But he misses the opportunity to protest on this occasion. The next day he issues a statement regretting O’Neill’s return home. “I would advise Mr. Lynch to keep him,” Paisley announces.

Five years earlier, in 1963, O’Neill becomes Prime Minister of Northern Ireland. From very early on, he tries to break down sectarian barriers between the two Northern communities. He also seeks to improve relations with the Republic of Ireland by eradicating the impasse in relations that has existed since the 1920s. He invites then-Taoiseach Seán Lemass to meet him at Stormont on January 14, 1965. Lemass courageously accepts the invitation. At their initial meeting, when they are briefly alone, Lemass says to O’Neill, ”I shall get into terrible trouble for this!” The Northern premier replies, ”No, Mr. Lemass, it is I who will get into terrible trouble.”

O’Neill makes his return visit to Dublin on February 9, 1965, and the two leaders agree to co-operate on tourism and electricity. It is Lemass who makes the most significant concessions, because the Constitution of Ireland does not recognise the existence of the North. Article 2 of the Constitution actually claims sovereignty over the whole island. Thus, by formally meeting the Prime Minister of Northern Ireland, O’Neill claims that Lemass accorded him “a de facto recognition.”

The Taoiseach then bolsters this at their follow-up meeting in Iveagh House, Dublin, three weeks later. ”The place card in front of me at Iveagh House bore the inscription, Prime Minister of Northern Ireland,” O’Neill proudly explains. Surely this is tantamount to formal recognition. But many Unionists still have grave reservations about dealing with the Republic of Ireland.

In 1966, Ian Paisley establishes the Protestant Unionist Party (PUP) to oppose O’Neill. He rouses sectarian tension by holding mass demonstrations at which he brands O’Neill as the “Ally of Popery.” Nevertheless, public opinion polls indicate support for O’Neill’s leadership from both communities in the North.

After Jack Lynch replaced Lemass as Taoiseach in late 1966, O’Neill continues with his efforts to improve relations with the Dublin government by inviting Lynch to Stormont Castle. The Taoiseach travels to Belfast by car on December 11, 1967. There is no formal announcement of his visit, but word is leaked to Paisley after the Taoiseach’s car crosses the border.

Paisley arrives at Stormont with his wife and a handful of supporters, just minutes before the Taoiseach. With snow on the ground, two of Paisley’s church ministers, Rev. Ivan Foster and Rev. William McCrea, begin throwing snowballs at Lynch’s car. The Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) promptly grabs the two ministers. While they are being bundled into a police car, Paisley is bellowing, “No Pope here!” Lynch asks his traveling companion, T. K. Whitaker, “Which one of us does he think is the Pope?”

Paisley demands to be arrested by the RUC, and actually tries to get into the police car with his two colleagues, but he is pulled away. The two clergymen are taken to an RUC station and quickly released. Lynch ridicules the protest. “It was a seasonal touch,” he says. “It reminds me of what happens when I go through a village at home and the boys come and throw snowballs.”

Paisley says he had come to protest against “the smuggling” of Lynch into Stormont. If he had known about the visit earlier, he says that he would have brought along 10,000 people to protest. Denouncing O’Neill, as a “snake in the grass,” he goes on to accuse Lynch of being “a murderer of our kith and kin.” In an editorial, the Unionist Newsletter proclaims that ”there is no doubt that Capt. O’Neill has the full support of his colleagues and of the country.”

O’Neill’s four formal meetings with Lynch and his predecessor contribute to a thaw in relations at the summit between Belfast and Dublin, but the whole process is exploited by others to fan the flames of Northern sectarianism.

People do not realise it in early 1968, but Northern Ireland is about to explode. On October 5, 1968, people gather in Derry for a civil rights march that has been banned by Stormont. When the march begins, it is viciously attacked by the RUC. This ignites a series of further protests, which ultimately leads to Bloody Sunday, and the eruption of the Troubles for the next quarter of a century.

(From: “Meetings helped thaw relations before the North exploded,” Irish Examiner, http://www.irishexaminer.com, January 8, 2018)


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The Kingsmill Massacre

The Kingsmill massacre, also referred to as the Whitecross massacre, is a mass shooting that takes place on January 5, 1976, near the village of Whitecross in south County Armagh, Northern Ireland. Gunmen stop a minibus carrying eleven Protestant workmen, line them up alongside it and shoot them. Only one victim survives, despite having been shot 18 times. A Catholic man on the minibus is allowed to go free. A group calling itself the South Armagh Republican Action Force claims responsibility. It says the shooting is retaliation for a string of attacks on Catholic civilians in the area by Loyalists, particularly the killing of six Catholics the night before. The Kingsmill massacre is the climax of a string of tit for tat killings in the area during the mid-1970s, and is one of the deadliest mass shootings of the Troubles.

On January 5, 1976, just after 5:30 p.m., a red Ford Transit minibus is carrying sixteen textile workers home from their workplace in Glenanne. Five are Catholics and eleven are Protestants. Four of the Catholics get out at Whitecross and the bus continues along the rural road to Bessbrook. As the bus clears the rise of a hill, it is stopped by a man in combat uniform standing on the road and flashing a torch. The workers assume they are being stopped and searched by the British Army. As the bus stops, eleven gunmen in combat uniform and with blackened faces emerge from the hedges. A man “with a pronounced English accent” begins talking. He orders the workers to get out of the bus and to line up facing it with their hands on the roof. He then asks, “Who is the Catholic?” The only Catholic is Richard Hughes. His workmates, now fearing that the gunmen are loyalists who have come to kill him, try to stop him from identifying himself. However, when Hughes steps forward the gunman tell him to “get down the road and don’t look back.”

The lead gunman then says, “Right,” and the others immediately open fire on the workers. The eleven men are shot at very close range with automatic rifles, which includes Armalites, an M1 carbine and an M1 Garand. A total of 136 rounds are fired in less than a minute. The men are shot at waist height and fall to the ground, some falling on top of each other, either dead or wounded. When the initial burst of gunfire stops, the gunmen reload their weapons. The order is given to “Finish them off,” and another burst of gunfire is fired into the heaped bodies of the workmen. One of the gunmen also walks among the dying men and shoots them each in the head with a pistol as they lay on the ground. Ten of them die at the scene: John Bryans (46), Robert Chambers (19), Reginald Chapman (25), Walter Chapman (23), Robert Freeburn (50), Joseph Lemmon (46), John McConville (20), James McWhirter (58), Robert Walker (46) and Kenneth Worton (24). Alan Black (32) is the only one who survives. He had been shot eighteen times and one of the bullets had grazed his head. He says, “I didn’t even flinch because I knew if I moved there would be another one.”

After carrying out the shooting, the gunmen calmly walk away. Shortly after, a married couple comes upon the scene of the killings and begin praying beside the victims. They find the badly wounded Alan Black lying in a ditch. When an ambulance arrives, Black is taken to a hospital in Newry, where he is operated on and survives. The Catholic worker, Richard Hughes, manages to stop a car and is driven to Bessbrook Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) station, where he raises the alarm. One of the first police officers on the scene is Billy McCaughey, who had taken part in the Reavey killings. He says, “When we arrived it was utter carnage. Men were lying two or three together. Blood was flowing, mixed with water from the rain.” Some of the Reavey family also come upon the scene of the Kingsmill massacre while driving to hospital to collect the bodies of their relatives. Johnston Chapman, the uncle of victims Reginald and Walter Chapman, says the dead workmen were “just lying there like dogs, blood everywhere”. At least two of the victims are so badly mutilated by gunfire that immediate relatives are prevented from identifying them. One relative says the hospital mortuary “was like a butcher’s shop with bodies lying on the floor like slabs of meat.”

Nine of the dead are from the village of Bessbrook, while the bus driver, Robert Walker, is from Mountnorris. Four of the men are members of the Orange Order and two are former members of the security forces: Kenneth Worton is a former Ulster Defence Regiment (UDR) soldier while Joseph Lemmon is a former Ulster Special Constabulary (USC) officer. Alan Black is appointed a Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) in the 2021 New Year Honours, for his cross-community work since the massacre.

The next day, a telephone caller claims responsibility for the attack on behalf of the “South Armagh Republican Action Force” or “South Armagh Reaction Force.” He says that it was retaliation for the Reavey–O’Dowd killings the night before, and that there will be “no further action on our part” if loyalists stop their attacks. He adds that the group has no connection with the Irish Republican Army (IRA). The IRA denies responsibility for the killings as it is on a ceasefire at the time.

However, a 2011 report by the Historical Enquiries Team (HET) concludes that Provisional IRA members were responsible and that the event was planned before the Reavey and O’Dowd killings which had taken place the previous day, and that “South Armagh Republican Action Force” was a cover name. Responding to the report, Sinn Féin spokesman Mitchel McLaughlin says that he does “not dispute the sectarian nature of the killings” but continues to believe “the denials by the IRA that they were involved”. Social Democratic and Labour Party (SDLP) Assemblyman Dominic Bradley calls on Sinn Féin to “publicly accept that the HET’s forensic evidence on the firearms used puts Provisional responsibility beyond question” and to stop “deny[ing] that the Provisional IRA was in the business of organising sectarian killings on a large scale.”

The massacre is condemned by the British and Irish governments, the main political parties and Catholic and Protestant church leaders. Merlyn Rees, the British Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, condemns the massacre and forecasts that the violence will escalate, saying “This is the way it will go on unless someone in their right senses stops it, it will go on.”

The British government immediately declares County Armagh a “Special Emergency Area” and deploys hundreds of extra troops and police in the area. A battalion of the Ulster Defence Regiment (UDR) is called out and the Spearhead Battalion is sent into the area. Two days after the massacre, the British Prime Minister Harold Wilson announces that the Special Air Service (SAS) is being sent into South Armagh. This is the first time that SAS operations in Northern Ireland are officially acknowledged. It is believed that some SAS personnel had already been in Northern Ireland for a few years. Units and personnel under SAS control are alleged to be involved in loyalist attacks.

The Kingsmill massacre is the last in the series of sectarian killings in South Armagh during the mid-1970s. According to Willie Frazer of Families Acting for Innocent Relatives (FAIR), this is a result of a deal between the local UVF and IRA groups.

(Pictured: The minibus carrying the textile factory workers is left peppered with bullet holes and blood stains the ground after the massacre, as detectives patrol the scene of the murders)


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The 1978 Crossmaglen Ambush

On December 21, 1978, three British soldiers are shot dead when the Provisional Irish Republican Army‘s South Armagh Brigade ambushes an eight-man British Army foot patrol in Crossmaglen, County Armagh, Northern Ireland.

Since the Troubles began, the South Armagh area—especially around Crossmaglen and other similar republican strongholds—is one of the most dangerous places for the British security forces, and the IRA’s South Armagh brigade carries out numerous ambushes on the British Army and Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC). This includes the 1975 Drummuckavall ambush and the 1978 downing of a British Army Gazelle helicopter which leads to the death of one British soldier and four others being seriously injured.

A number of British security force members are killed in Crossmaglen during 1978. On March 4, British soldier Nicholas Smith (20), 7 Platoon, B Company, 2nd Royal Green Jackets, is killed by an IRA booby trap bomb while attempting to remove an Irish flag from a telegraph pole in Crossmaglen. On June 17, William Turbitt (42) and Hugh McConnell (32), both Protestant RUC officers, are shot by the IRA while on mobile patrol near Crossmaglen. McConnell is killed at the scene, but Turbitt is kidnapped. The next day, a Catholic priest, Fr. Hugh Murphy, is kidnapped in retaliation but later released after appeals from Protestant clergy. The body of Turbitt is found on July 10, 1978.

On December 21, 1978, when the patrol is near Rio’s Bar coming around a bend, a red Royal Mail-type van is spotted by the patrols commander Sergeant Richard Garmory. The van is fitted with armor plating and is facing away from the patrol. Garmory believes the van is in a suspicious place on the other side of the street. He notes what appear to be boxes in the back of the van, which actually provide cover for the IRA Volunteers. IRA members open fire from the back of the van with an M60 machine gun which is fitted down onto the floor in the back of the van. Three other IRA volunteers armed with AR-15-style rifles and another Volunteer with an AK-47 open up on the patrol. The British soldiers on patrol return fire but do not claim any hits. A handful of Christmas shoppers scramble for cover. Three soldiers at the front of the patrol are fatally wounded. They are treated by staff at a nearby health center and then taken to Musgrave Park Hospital but are declared dead on arrival. The soldiers killed are Graham Duggan (22), Kevin Johnson (20) and Glen Ling (18). All are members of the British Armies Grenadier Guards regiment. The patrol commander, Richard Garmory, says of the ambush:

On coming round the bend near the Rio Bar, I saw 40 yards away what looked like a British Rail parcel delivery van parked partly on the pavement on the left facing away from us. It had an 18-inch tailboard with a roll shutter that could be pulled down. The van immediately struck me as highly suspicious because I saw what looked like cardboard boxes piled to the top in the back, all flush with the tailboard so they would fall out if the van moved off fast. I instantaneously put my magnifying sight to my to my eye and saw four firing slits, two above the other two, among the boxes. I immediately opened fire.

Four months later the South Armagh brigade strikes again at British security forces, this time near Bessbrook which is several miles from Crossmaglen. Four RUC officers are killed in the 1979 Bessbrook bombing, when a 1,000 lb. land mine is detonated when the RUC patrol is passing by the bomb, killing all the officers outright.

(Pictured: South Armagh Brigade, Provisional Irish Republican Army, manning a temporary checkpoint close to Crossmaglen, 1978)


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Donnelly’s Bar and Kay’s Tavern Attacks

During the evening of December 19, 1975, two coordinated attacks are carried out by the Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF) in pubs on either side of the Irish border. The first attack, a car bombing, takes place outside Kay’s Tavern, a pub along Crowe Street in Dundalk, County Louth, Republic of Ireland – close to the border. The second, a gun and bomb attack, takes place at Donnelly’s Bar & Filling Station in Silverbridge, County Armagh, just across the border inside Northern Ireland.

The attacks are linked to the Glenanne gang, a group of loyalist militants who are either members of the UVF, the Ulster Defence Regiment (UDR), the Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) and the closely linked UVF paramilitary the Red Hand Commando (RHC). Some of the Glenanne gang are members of two of these organisations at the same time, such as gang leaders Billy Hanna, who is in both the UVF and the UDR and who fights for the British Army during the Korean War, and John Weir from County Monaghan, who is in the UVF and is a sergeant in the RUC. At least 25 UDR men and police officers are named as members of the gang. The Red Hand Commando claim to have carried out both attacks.

According to journalist Joe Tiernan, the attacks are planned and led by Robert McConnell and Robin “The Jackal” Jackson who are both alleged to have carried out dozens of sectarian murders during The Troubles, mainly from 1974 to 1977, mostly in south County Armagh – which in 1975 is virtually lawless. Loyalist paramilitaries and the Provisional Irish Republican Army roam the streets and countryside and can set up bogus military checkpoints freely.

The attacks are planned at the Glenanne farm of RUC reserve officer James Mitchell which is where most terrorist acts are planned by the gang and the farm also acts as a UVF arms dump and bomb-making site. After the attacks are finished everyone involved in both attacks is to meet at Mitchell’s farm. Then if there is any heat, Mitchell can claim the bombers and shooters were with him when the attacks happened.

The first phase of the plan starts at around 6:15 p.m. along Crowe Street in Dundalk when a 100-pound no-warning bomb explodes in a Ford sports car just outside Kay’s Tavern. The blast kills Hugh Watters, who is a tailor and has just dropped into the pub to deliver some clothes he has altered for the pub’s owner, almost instantly. Jack Rooney, who is walking past the town hall on the opposite side of the street, is struck in the head by flying shrapnel and dies three days later. A further 20 people are injured in the explosion, several of them very seriously. The car bomb is fitted with fake southern registration plates and placed in one of the busiest streets in Dundalk in the hope of causing maximum death and injury. According to Joe Tiernan, UVF commander Robin Jackson plants the bomb and along with other members of his unit escapes across the border in a blue Hillman Hunter around the time the bomb goes off.

At around 9:00 p.m., about three hours after the Dundalk bombing, the second phase of the coordinated plan begins. It is led by McConnell and takes place at Donnelly’s Bar & Filling Station in the small Armagh village Silverbridge, close to Crossmaglen.

The unit arrives in two cars and come unusually fast toward the pub. The publican’s son, Michael Donnelly (14), is serving petrol to a customer. He notices the strange speed of the cars. He tries to run toward the pub, but McConnell jumps out of one of the cars and shoots the teenage boy dead with a Sten gun. McConnell then shoots the man Michael Donnelly had been serving petrol to in the head. Although the man survives the shooting, he is maimed for life.

Then a second gunman, believed to be Billy McCaughey, a UVF volunteer and member of the RUC Special Patrol Group, shoots dead a second person, local man Patrick Donnelly (no relation to the pub owner’s family) who has been waiting for petrol. McConnell then goes inside the pub and sprays the bar with his Sten SMG, killing a third man, Trevor Bracknell, and seriously injuring three more people.

As McConnell withdraws to his car, two other members of the unit carry a 25-pound cylinder bomb inside the pub. As McConnell’s unit flees back to Mitchell’s farm, the bomb detonates inside the pub. However, by this time most of the people have already fled.

(Pictured: Photograph of the destruction at Kay’s Tavern after the loyalist car bomb explosion on December 19, 1975. Members of the Garda and Dundalk fire service are seen in the foreground. Also present are a number of visiting government ministers from Dublin.)