Glenanne gang


The Glenanne gang or Glenanne group was a secret informal alliance of Ulster loyalists who carried out shooting and bombing attacks against Catholics and Irish nationalists in the 1970s, during the Troubles. Most of its attacks took place in the "murder triangle" area of counties Armagh and Tyrone in Northern Ireland. It also launched some attacks elsewhere in Northern Ireland and in the Republic of Ireland. The gang included British soldiers from the Ulster Defence Regiment, police officers from the Royal Ulster Constabulary, and members of the Mid-Ulster Brigade of the Ulster Volunteer Force. Twenty-five British soldiers and police officers were named as purported members of the gang. Details about the group have come from many sources, including the affidavit of former member and RUC officer John Weir; statements by other former members; police, army and court documents; and ballistics evidence linking the same weapons to various attacks. Since 2003, the group's activities have also been investigated by the 2006 Cassel Report, and three reports commissioned by Irish Supreme Court Justice Henry Barron, known as the Barron Reports. A book focusing on the group's activities, Lethal Allies: British Collusion in Ireland, by Anne Cadwallader, was published in 2013. It drew on all the aforementioned sources, as well as Historical Enquiries Team investigations. The book was the basis for the 2019 documentary film Unquiet Graves, directed by Sean Murray.
Lethal Allies claims that permutations of the group killed about 120 people – almost all of whom were Catholic civilians with no links to Irish republican paramilitaries. The Cassel Report investigated 76 killings attributed to the group and found evidence that British soldiers and RUC officers were involved in 74 of those. John Weir claimed his superiors knew he was working with loyalist militants but allowed it to continue. The Cassel Report also said that some senior officers knew of the crimes but did nothing to prevent, investigate or punish. It has been alleged that some key members were double agents working for British military intelligence and RUC Special Branch.
Attacks attributed to the group include the Dublin and Monaghan bombings, the Miami Showband killings, the Reavey and O'Dowd killings and the Hillcrest Bar bombing. Many of the victims were killed at their homes or in indiscriminate attacks on Catholic-owned pubs with guns and/or bombs. Some were shot after being stopped at fake British Army checkpoints, and a number of the attacks were co-ordinated. When it wished to "claim" its attacks, the group usually used the name "Protestant Action Force". The name "Glenanne gang" has been used since 2003 and is derived from the farm at Glenanne that was used as the gang's main 'base of operations'. It also made use of a farm near Dungannon.

Political situation in Northern Ireland

By the mid-1970s the violent ethno-political conflict known as the Troubles had radically transformed the daily lives of people in Northern Ireland; after five years of turbulent civil unrest, the bombings and shootings showed no signs of abating. The armed campaign waged by the Provisional IRA had escalated, with bombings in England and increased attacks on the security forces in Northern Ireland. The British Army and the Royal Ulster Constabulary bore the brunt of IRA violence and many Protestants felt their people to be under attack. Rogue members of the RUC Special Patrol Group believed that the situation was rapidly deteriorating and that the IRA were actually 'winning the war'. As early as the end of 1973, it was suggested that drastic measures had to be taken to defeat the organisation. The SPG was a specialised police unit tasked with providing back-up to the regular RUC and to police sensitive areas.
On 10 February 1975, the Provisional IRA and British government entered into a truce and restarted negotiations. The IRA agreed to halt attacks on the British security forces, and the security forces mostly ended its raids and searches. However, there were dissenters on both sides. Some Provisionals wanted no part of the truce, while British commanders resented being told to stop their operations against the IRA just when—they claimed—they had the Provisionals on the run. There was a rise in sectarian killings during the truce, which 'officially' lasted until February 1976. Ulster loyalist paramilitaries, fearing they were about to be forsaken by the British government and forced into a united Ireland, increased their attacks on Roman Catholics and nationalists. Loyalist fears were partially grounded in fact as Secret Intelligence Service officer Michael Oatley had engaged in negotiations with a member of the IRA Army Council during which "structures of disengagement" from Ireland were discussed. This had meant a possible withdrawal of British troops from Northern Ireland. Loyalists killed 120 Catholics in 1975, the vast majority civilians. They hoped to force the IRA to retaliate in kind and thus hasten an end to the truce.

Formation of the Glenanne gang

It was during this exceptionally violent period that a group of loyalist extremists formed a loose alliance that was belatedly in 2003 given the name "Glenanne gang". The gang, which contained over 40 known members, included soldiers of the British Army's Ulster Defence Regiment, rogue elements of the RUC, the Mid-Ulster Brigade of the illegal paramilitary Ulster Volunteer Force and some Ulster Defence Association members.
This group began to carry out shooting and bombing attacks directed against Catholics and nationalists to retaliate for the IRA's intensified campaign. Most of these attacks took place in the area of County Armagh and Mid-Ulster referred to as the "murder triangle" by journalist Joe Tiernan. It also launched attacks elsewhere in Northern Ireland and in the Republic of Ireland. The name "Glenanne gang" is derived from the farm at Glenanne that was used as the gang's arm dump and bomb-making site.
In his 2013 memoirs, Joseph Pearce, a British former white supremacist and senior member of the National Front who later converted to Catholicism and is a writer and academician at Aquinas College, revealed what he knew about collusion between the NF, the British Army, and loyalist death squads. According to Pearce, "In spite of my own unwillingness to become too directly involved in the terrorist operations in Northern Ireland, I was very aware, as were the leaders of the UVF and UDA, that National Front members serving with the Army in Northern Ireland were smuggling intelligence information on suspected IRA members to the Loyalist paramilitaries. This information included photographs of suspected IRA members, the type of car they drove and its registration number, and other useful facts. I have little doubt that this information was used by the UVF and UDA to target and assassinate their enemies."

Alleged members

The following people, among others, have been implicated by Justice Barron and Professor Douglass Cassel in their respective reports as having been members of the Glenanne gang:

Key figures

The gang has also been linked to military intelligence liaison officer Captain Robert Nairac who worked for 14th Intelligence Company. On The Hidden Hand programme made by Yorkshire Television in 1993, it was claimed that Robin Jackson was controlled by Nairac and 14th Intelligence. In May 1977, Nairac was kidnapped by the IRA in Dromintee and taken across the border into the Republic where he was interrogated for more than an hour and pistol-whipped in Ravensdale Woods, County Louth. Nairac was then shot dead by Liam Townson.
Pte Ian Leonard Price, 2nd battalion, The Queens Reg
Merlyn Rees, Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, lifted the proscription against the UVF on 4 April 1974, but it was made illegal once again on 3 October 1975; therefore, during the period between April 1974 and October 1975, membership of the UVF was not a crime. The largest loyalist paramilitary group in Northern Ireland, the Ulster Defence Association was also not proscribed at the time.

Attacks attributed to the Glenanne gang

In 2004, the Pat Finucane Centre asked Professor Douglas Cassel to convene an international inquiry to investigate collusion by members of the British security forces in sectarian killings in Northern Ireland committed during the mid-1970s. The gang's involvement in the killings was to be investigated in particular.
The panel interviewed victims and their relatives, as well as four members of the security forces. The four members of the security forces were: RUC SPG officers John Weir and Billy McCaughey; psychological warfare operative Colin Wallace and MI6 operative Captain Fred Holroyd. They all implicated the Glenanne gang in the attacks. In seven out of eight cases, ballistic tests corroborated Weir's claims linking the killings to weapons carried by the security forces. The interviews revealed many similarities in the way the attacks were carried out, while various documents established a chain of ballistic history linking weapons and killings to the gang. Justice Barron commented in reference to the gang
This joining of RUC and UDR members with members of Loyalist paramilitary organisations is emphasised by the use of the same or connected guns by intermingled groups of these organisations.

The Glenanne gang has been linked to the following attacks and/or incidents:

1972 and 1973

AttackDate.455 Webley revolver 9 mm Luger pistol Serial No. U 4 9mm Luger pistol .38 ACP pistol.455 Webley revolver 9 mm Sterling SMG 9 mm Sterling SMG 9 mm SMG 9mm SMG Star pistol9 mm Emra SMG.45 ACP Colt pistol
Patrick Turley10 March 1973X
Loughgall shooting24 March 1973X
Argory shooting13 June 1973X
McAliskey family4 August 1973
Mullan family5 August 1973X
Boyle's Bar17 January 1974X
Devlin family7 May 1974XX
T.J. Chambers3 September 1974XX
Shooting incident3 September 1974X
Falls Bar20 November 1974X
Newtownhamilton shooting8 December 1974XX
John Francis Green10 January 1975XXX
Trainor family1 April 1975X
Owen Boyle11 April 1975X
Glenside Bar7 May 1975X
Miami Showband31 July 1975XXX
Altnamacken shooting2 August 1975X
McCartney/Farmer24 August 1975XXX
Denis Mullen1 September 1975X
McKearney family23 October 1975XXX
Donnelly's Bar19 December 1975X
O'Dowd family4 January 1976X
Reavey family4 January 1976XXXX
Eagle Bar15 May 1976X
Rock Bar5 June 1976XX
Patrick McNeice25 July 1976X
William Strathearn19 April 1977X
Ahoghill shooting23 June 1977X
Brendan McLaughlin29 February 1980X

The Glenanne farm and the Dublin and Monaghan bombings

It is claimed in the Barron Report that Billy Hanna had asked James Mitchell for permission to use his farm as a UVF arms dump and bomb-making site. Information that loyalist paramilitaries were regularly meeting at the farm appeared on British Intelligence Corps documents from late 1972. According to submissions received by Mr Justice Barron, the Glenanne farm was used to build and store the bombs that exploded in Dublin and Monaghan. The report claims they were placed onto Robin Jackson's poultry lorry, driven across the border to a carpark, then activated by Hanna and transferred to three allocated cars. These cars exploded almost simultaneously in Dublin's city centre at about 5.30pm during evening rush hour, killing 26 civilians. Ninety minutes later a fourth car bomb exploded in Monaghan, killing another seven civilians.
Mitchell and his female housekeeper, Lily Shields both denied knowledge that the farm was used for illicit paramilitary activity. They also denied partaking in any UVF attacks. In his affidavit, John Weir affirms that the farmhouse was used as a base for UVF operations that included the Dublin and Monaghan bombings. Weir also stated that on one occasion an RUC constable gave him two weapons to store at the Glenanne farm:
He then offered me the two sub-machine guns because he knew about my connection to Loyalist paramilitaries. I accepted them and took them to Mitchell's farmhouse.

In his affidavit, Weir recounted when in March 1976 he had gone to the farm where between eight and ten men dressed in camouflage had been parading in the farmyard. Inside he had discussed with Mitchell and others the details of a planned bombing and shooting attack against a nationalist pub, Tully's in Belleeks. Mitchell had shown him the floor plans of the pub's interior which he had drawn up highlighting the lack of escape routes for the pub's patrons. The plan was temporarily called off when it was discovered that the British Army's Parachute Regiment was on patrol that evening in the area. Weir returned to Belfast the next day and the attack went ahead that evening, 8 March. There were no casualties, however, as Mitchell's floor plans had been inaccurate, and the customers had fled into the pub's living quarters for safety once the shooting had commenced outside, and the bomb only caused structural damage to the building.
Mr. Justice Barron concluded in his report:
It is likely that the farm of James Mitchell at Glenanne played a significant part in the preparation for the attacks . It is also likely that members of the UDR and RUC either participated in, or were aware of those preparations.

Miami Showband massacre

On 31 July 1975, four days after Hanna's shooting and Jackson's assumption of leadership of the Mid-Ulster brigade, the Miami Showband's minibus was flagged-down outside Newry by armed UVF men wearing British Army uniforms at a bogus military checkpoint. Two UVF men loaded a time delay bomb on the minibus but it exploded prematurely and killed them. The remaining UVF gunmen then opened fire on the bandmembers, killing three and wounding two. Two of the three men convicted of the killings and sentenced to life imprisonment were serving members of the UDR, and the third was a former member. The Luger pistol used in the attack was found to have been the same one used to kill Provisional IRA member John Francis Green in January 1975 and was also used in the O'Dowd killings of January 1976. The following May, the security forces found Jackson's fingerprints on a home-made silencer attached to a Luger. Although charged, Jackson avoided conviction. A Sterling 9mm submachine gun was also used in the Miami Showband killings. The 2003 Barron Report suggests that the guns were taken from the stockpile of weapons at the Glenanne farm. The Luger pistol used in the Green, Miami Showband, and O'Dowd attacks was later destroyed by the RUC on 28 August 1978.
Liaison officer Captain Robert Nairac has been linked to the Miami Showband killings and the killing of John Francis Green. Miami Showband survivors Stephen Travers and Des McAlea both testified in court that a man with a "crisp, clipped English accent, and wearing a different uniform and beret" had been at the scene of the explosion and subsequent shootings. Martin Dillon in The Dirty War, however, adamantly states that Nairac was not involved in either attack. The Cassel Report concluded that there was "credible evidence that the principal perpetrator was a man who was not prosecuted – alleged RUC Special Branch agent Robin Jackson". Although Jackson had been questioned by the RUC following the Showband attack, he was released without having been charged.

Reavey and O'Dowd killings and the Kingsmill massacre

The co-ordinated sectarian shootings of the Reavey and O'Dowd families, allegedly perpetrated by the Glenanne gang and organised by Robin Jackson, was followed the next day by the Kingsmill massacre. On 5 January 1976, gunmen from the Provisional IRA stopped a minibus carrying eleven Protestant men home from their workplace in Glenanne. The gunmen lined them up alongside it and shot them, killing ten. The "South Armagh Republican Action Force" claimed responsibility, saying that the shooting was retaliation for a string of attacks on Catholic civilians in the area by loyalists, particularly the Reavey and O'Dowd killings. A 2011 Historical Enquiries Team report however found that Kingsmill had been planned in advance of these killings.
In 2001, an unidentified former Glenanne gang member revealed that the gang had planned to kill thirty Catholic schoolchildren as revenge for Kingsmill. It planned to attack St Lawrence O'Toole Primary School in the South Armagh village of Belleeks. The attack was allegedly called off because the UVF leadership ruled it would be "morally unacceptable" and would lead to a harsh IRA response and likely civil war. Allegedly, the leadership also suspected that the member who suggested the attack was working with British Military Intelligence, and that Military Intelligence were seeking to provoke a civil war. Former Glenanne gang member Billy McCaughey admitted the plot in a 2004 documentary.

Convictions

The Cassel Report states that convictions were obtained in only nine of the 25 cases it investigated and that several of those convictions are suspect as erroneous and incomplete. A month before Nairac's killing, a Catholic chemist, William Strathearn, was gunned down at his home in Ahoghill, County Antrim. SPG officers Weir and McCaughey were charged and convicted for the killing. Weir named Jackson as having been the gunman but Jackson was never interrogated for "reasons of operational strategy". The Special Patrol Group was disbanded in 1980 by the RUC after the convictions of Weir and McCaughey for the Strathearn killing.
In December 1978 the authorities raided the Glenanne farm and found weapons and ammunition. This made it necessary for the gang to seek an alternative base of operations and arms dump. James Mitchell was charged and convicted of storing weapons on his land. Northern Ireland's Lord Chief Justice Robert Lowry presided over his trial on 30 June 1980. The farm had been under RUC observation for several months before the raid.
On 16 October 1979, Robin Jackson was arrested when he was found with a number of weapons and hoods. In January 1981 he was sentenced to seven years imprisonment for possession of guns and ammunition, but was then released in May 1983. John Weir stated that the Glenanne gang usually did not use the name "UVF" whenever it claimed its attacks; instead it typically employed the cover names of Red Hand Commando, Red Hand Brigade or Protestant Action Force.

Later developments

The circumstances of a number of the murders attributed to the Glenanne gang were re-investigated by the PSNI Historical Enquiries Team, established in 2005 to investigate unsolved murders committed between 1968 and 1998, with a particular brief to investigate any evidence of state involvement in such killings. In addition to reports on individual murders, assurances were given that the HET would also produce an overarching report into the pattern of activities of the gang as a whole. By May 2010 about 80% of this report had been completed.
However, in early 2014 it became clear that the HET was no longer proceeding with the broader review, and later that year due to budget cuts the HET was wound up altogether, with its remaining activities absorbed back into the PSNI with a much narrowed remit.
In February 2015 relatives of victims of the gang won an application for a judicial review of this decision at the High Court in Belfast. This review found, in July 2017, that the decision by PSNI Chief Constable Matt Baggott had effectively prevented an "overarching thematic report" into the activities of the Glenanne gang had breached the victims' families' rights as defined in Article 2 of the European Convention on Human Rights.
The Court had been told that there was evidence of collusion by elements of the British state in at least three of the cases and Mr. Justice Treacy said that there was a "credible expectation of collusion" in the remaining cases. Therefore, he concluded, the decision of the Chief Constable to end the broader review into the activities of the Glenanne gang and the alleged collusion of elements of the British state in those murders had resulted in a "real risk that this will fuel in the minds of the families the fear that the state has resiled from its public commitments because it is not genuinely committed to addressing the unresolved concerns that the families have of state involvement". Mr Justice Treacy gave the parties until the start of September 2017 to try to reach an agreement on the appropriate form of relief. In November 2017 Mr Justice Treacy gave further judgement, confirming that he would be issuing an order of mandamus that would require compliance by the Chief Constable and the PSNI.
An appeal by the Chief Constable against the decision was heard in April 2018, amid claims that an outsourced investigation would cost £60 million.
In July 2019 the Court of Appeal ruled that a full, independent inquiry into allegations of collusion between security services and the Glenanne gang should be held.
In February 2020 the terms of reference for a review into the activities of the gang were agreed. Former Bedfordshire Police chief Jon Boutcher is heading the review.