Billy McCaughey
Encyclopedia
William "Billy" McCaughey (c. 1950 - 8 February 2006) was a member of the Royal Ulster Constabulary
's Special Patrol Group
(SPG) and the illegal Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF) in the 1970s. He was imprisoned for 16 years for murder from 1980 to 1996. On his release he worked as a loyalist
political activist until his death in 2006.
, County Antrim
, McCaughey had the nickname
"The Protestant Boy". He served in the Ulster Special Constabulary
, the 'B Specials', and when that was disbanded, he joined the regular Royal Ulster Constabulary
. A former bodyguard to Ulster Unionist Minister John Taylor
, McCaughey was also a member for a time of the Ulster Protestant Volunteers
, a paramilitary group associated with the Reverend Ian Paisley
, and of Paisley's Free Presbyterian Church
.
. McCaughey co-operated extensively with the UVF and carried out a number of attacks with SPG colleagues. He "expressed virulently anti-Catholic views ... and made it known ... that he had strong links to the UVF. A Special Branch recommendation that he be excluded after his probationary period was overridden by an inspector's report that described him as 'one of the best, if not the best, constables attached to my section (of the B Specials)'". McCaughey said of his RUC Special Patrol Group unit: ”Our colour code was Orange and it was Orange by nature and several of us were paramilitaries. Our proud boast was that we would never have a Catholic in it. We did actually have a Catholic once, a guy called Danny from Dungannon
. The day after he joined we had him dangling out from the back of a Land Rover with his chin inches from the road. He lasted a week”.
. He admitted to a number of other sectarian murders. However, the two were convicted of just three crimes, murder, kidnapping and attempted murder. McCaughey served 16 years. He admitted the 1977 sectarian murder of chemist William Strathern, a Catholic. In 1977, the leader of the UVF's Mid-Ulster brigade, Robin Jackson
, who had allegedly killed a Catholic civilian in 1973, was named in court as the gunman who shot William Strathern in Ahoghill, County Antrim
, for which McCaughey and John Weir were convicted. Jackson was not questioned, for "operational reasons" which have never been detailed."
McCaughey also pleaded guilty to the kidnapping of a Catholic priest, Father Hugh Murphy, in retaliation for the kidnapping and killing of two members of the security forces by the Provisional Irish Republican Army
. Fr. Murphy was released unharmed after a plea from Ian Paisley
. He also admitted to a gun and bomb attack on a pub, the Rock Bar, in Keady
in 1977 in which he had tried to assassinate IRA member Dessie O'Hare
. McCaughey shot and seriously injured a man who prevented him entering the pub, which he intended to spray with machine gun fire. The bomb also failed to explode and O'Hare survived unharmed. Two other RUC officers were handed suspended sentences for their part in the bombing. The guns used in the attack were the same ones used in the murder of three Catholic brothers Anthony, John and Brian Reavey in Armagh on 4 January 1976. McCaughey was also implicated in the killings of three members of the O'Dowd family - Barry, his brother Declan and their uncle Joe - targeted 10 minutes after the Reaveys. See Reavey and O'Dowd killings
. McCaughey told the surviving Reavey brother in 1988: that he was at the house with three other attackers but fired no shots.
McCaughey claimed that the 'Kingsmill massacre
' of 10 Protestant civilians the following day caused him to pass RUC intelligence to loyalist paramilitaries. He was one of the first police officers on the scene and recalled that
personnel were working with the loyalist paramilitaries in the Armagh area in what became known as the Glenanne gang
. The Barron Enquiry into the Dublin and Monaghan bombings
of 1974, found a chain of ballistic history linking weapons and killings, to which McCaughey admitted involvement. These included, "in 1975, three murders at Donnelly's bar in Silverbridge, the murders of two men at a fake UDR checkpoint, the murder of IRA man John Francis Green
in the Republic, the murders of members of the Miami showband and the murder of Dorothy Trainor in Portadown. In 1976, they included the murders of three members of the Reavey family, and the attack on the Rock Bar in Tassagh."
In addition "Barron found that it was probable the guns were kept at a farm at Glenanne belonging to James Mitchell, an RUC reservist ... from which a group of paramilitaries and members of the security forces ... carried out the massacres at Dublin and Monaghan ... The chain was unbroken because the perpetrators of these attacks weren't caught, or investigations were haphazard, or charges were dropped, or light or suspended sentences were given. The same individuals turn up again and again, but the links weren't noted. Some of the perpetrators weren't prosecuted despite evidence against them. Weir claimed that McCaughey was part of this "Glenanne gang
", although McCaughey disputed this. McCaughey refused to give evidence to Judge Barron's enquiry, claiming "I know nothing about it". Judge Barron disagreed. "The Inquiry agrees with the view of An Garda Siochana that Weir's allegations regarding the Dublin and Monaghan bombings must be treated with the utmost seriousness."
. He also claimed that he was "a devout member of Ian Paisley's Free Presbyterian Church
." McCaughey had had a long association with Paisley, founder and leader of the Free Presbyterian Church, and of the Democratic Unionist Party
(DUP), which McCaughey had originally joined in the 1960s.
He organised fund raising for the DUP in prison to help defend Peter Robinson
, its deputy leader, in a court case organising a sponsored run around the prison exercise yard. Ian Paisley wrote a letter of thanks to McCaughey in 1991, promising to try to help try to get his sentence shortened. Paisley wrote in his own handwriting: "'There is a door for you to get to the Secretary of State, a door which we were able to open'". The letter was made public by Paisley's opponents in the run up to the referendum on the Good Friday Agreement in 1998.
McCaughey was released in 1996. He appears to have become disillusioned with Ian Paisley
, allowing his membership of the Free Presbyterian Church to lapse by 1998. He declared himself "undecided" in the Good Friday referendum of that year: "I want to support this agreement. I want it to work, but don't want to be endorsing some republican plot." McCaughey became a member of the Progressive Unionist Party
, the party associated with the paramilitary Ulster Volunteer Force. He also started work as a self employed builder.
He became a prominent figure in the picketing of Our Lady's Roman Catholic Church in Harryville, Ballymena
, which was organised in protest against the re-routing of Orange Order marches. However, he denied he was the central organiser. He admitted, "I have done a few press releases" and that he had taken part in the church pickets "maybe six times" over a 21 week period.". McCaughey said he sympathised with the aim of the Harryville protest, which was "to secure civil rights for Orangemen in Dunloy He later claimed that he had "withdrawn from the protest because of a "witch hunt" against him by the nationalist media"
Some years later McCaughey joined the short lived United Loyalist Cultural Committee, a loyalist group which admitted to having members from the UVF and UDA. In 2001, the Committee on which McCaughey sat, threatened to hold regular weekly street protests in a Roman Catholic part of Ballymena until Irish tricolours were removed. The protest was followed by a loyalist attack to remove the flags in Fisherwick estate, Ballymena. Over twenty men were charged with breaching the peace in the incident. McCaughey organised a picket with 20 supporters on the day of the court hearing. He explained: "This is not a protest - we are here to show our sympathy for the boys."
In 2002 relatives of his victim William Strathearn were sickened to find out that McCaughey was entitled to his RUC pension for his previous years service in the RUC.When he was sent to prison the then RUC chief constable Jack Hermon opposed any pension for McCaughey but failed on a legal technicality.
McCaughey himself justified the pension stating I've earned it. I did 10 years service fair and square,and I can say that I'm not the only one with a past that has got the pension from the RUC."
In April 2004, McCaughey attended an official dinner with President of Ireland
Mary McAleese
in Aras an Uachtarain
, the Presidential residence in Dublin. McCaughey declared that he intended "to invite the President to visit the staunchly Protestant Ballee and Harryville areas of Ballymena". McCaughey withdrew the invitation because of President McAleese's "Holocaust Day speech in which she compared Protestant prejudice towards Catholics to the Nazi hatred of Jews".
In July 2005 a meeting of the District Policing Partnership in the County Antrim village of Clogh
had to abandoned after a loyalist protesters including McCaughey protested due to the presence of SDLP councillor and DPP chairman Declan O'Loan
. Protesters shouted sectarian abuse at O'Loan and McCaughey stated the protest could have been avoided if O'Loan 'had accepted his total unacceptability' in Clogh.
In August 2005, McCaughey warned that loyalists were considering restarting the picket outside Harryville Roman Catholic Church in Ballymena if Protestant Orange Order marchers were rerouted from a mainly Roman Catholic area of the town.
When republicans proposed their first ever parade in Ballymena in 2005 to commemorate Operation Demetrius
,to some surprise he didn't have any objections to the proposed parade as long as the route wasn't contentious.
McCaughey stood for election to Ballymena Borough Council, for the Progressive Unionist Party
(PUP) in Ballymena South 2001 (51 votes, 0.48% - one of two PUP candidates, PUP total: 94 votes, 1.4%) and 2005 (94 votes, 1.6% - sole PUP candidate). He also unsuccessfully contested North Antrim for the assembly elections in 2003 (230 votes, 0.5%).
Despite his past and previous convictions he was a member of an Orange Lodge in Ballymena.
Royal Ulster Constabulary
The Royal Ulster Constabulary was the name of the police force in Northern Ireland from 1922 to 2000. Following the awarding of the George Cross in 2000, it was subsequently known as the Royal Ulster Constabulary GC. It was founded on 1 June 1922 out of the Royal Irish Constabulary...
's Special Patrol Group
Special Patrol Group (RUC)
The Special Patrol Group in the Royal Ulster Constabulary was a police unit tasked with counter terrorism. Each SPG had 30 members. Many of the SPG units were accused of collusion with the illegal paramilitary group the Ulster Volunteer Force, particularly the actions of a unit based in Armagh.-A...
(SPG) and the illegal Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF) in the 1970s. He was imprisoned for 16 years for murder from 1980 to 1996. On his release he worked as a loyalist
Ulster loyalism
Ulster loyalism is an ideology that is opposed to a united Ireland. It can mean either support for upholding Northern Ireland's status as a constituent part of the United Kingdom , support for Northern Ireland independence, or support for loyalist paramilitaries...
political activist until his death in 2006.
Early life
Growing up in AhoghillAhoghill
Ahoghill or Ahohill is a large village in County Antrim, Northern Ireland, four miles from Ballymena. It has a population of 3,055 people . It is within the Borough of Ballymena....
, County Antrim
County Antrim
County Antrim is one of six counties that form Northern Ireland, situated in the north-east of the island of Ireland. Adjoined to the north-east shore of Lough Neagh, the county covers an area of 2,844 km², with a population of approximately 616,000...
, McCaughey had the nickname
Nickname
A nickname is "a usually familiar or humorous but sometimes pointed or cruel name given to a person or place, as a supposedly appropriate replacement for or addition to the proper name.", or a name similar in origin and pronunciation from the original name....
"The Protestant Boy". He served in the Ulster Special Constabulary
Ulster Special Constabulary
The Ulster Special Constabulary was a reserve police force in Northern Ireland. It was set up in October 1920, shortly before the founding of Northern Ireland. It was an armed corps, organised partially on military lines and called out in times of emergency, such as war or insurgency...
, the 'B Specials', and when that was disbanded, he joined the regular Royal Ulster Constabulary
Royal Ulster Constabulary
The Royal Ulster Constabulary was the name of the police force in Northern Ireland from 1922 to 2000. Following the awarding of the George Cross in 2000, it was subsequently known as the Royal Ulster Constabulary GC. It was founded on 1 June 1922 out of the Royal Irish Constabulary...
. A former bodyguard to Ulster Unionist Minister John Taylor
John Taylor, Baron Kilclooney
John David Taylor, Baron Kilclooney, PC , is a former Ulster Unionist Party MP and a life peer. He was deputy leader of the UUP from 1995 to 2001, and a member of the Northern Ireland Assembly.-Career and family:...
, McCaughey was also a member for a time of the Ulster Protestant Volunteers
Ulster Protestant Volunteers
The Ulster Protestant Volunteers were a loyalist and fundamentalist Christian paramilitary group in Northern Ireland. They were active between 1966 and 1969 and closely linked to the Ulster Constitution Defence Committee , established by Ian Paisley in 1966.The UPV launched a bombing campaign to...
, a paramilitary group associated with the Reverend Ian Paisley
Ian Paisley
Ian Richard Kyle Paisley, Baron Bannside, PC is a politician and church minister in Northern Ireland. As the leader of the Democratic Unionist Party , he and Sinn Féin's Martin McGuinness were elected First Minister and deputy First Minister respectively on 8 May 2007.In addition to co-founding...
, and of Paisley's Free Presbyterian Church
Free Presbyterian Church of Ulster
The Free Presbyterian Church is a Presbyterian denomination founded by the Rev. Ian Paisley in 1951. Most of its members live in Northern Ireland...
.
Special Patrol Group
In the early 1970s, McCaughey was assigned to the Special Patrol Group of the RUC, a specialist anti-terrorist unit, based in ArmaghArmagh
Armagh is a large settlement in Northern Ireland, and the county town of County Armagh. It is a site of historical importance for both Celtic paganism and Christianity and is the seat, for both the Roman Catholic Church and the Church of Ireland, of the Archbishop of Armagh...
. McCaughey co-operated extensively with the UVF and carried out a number of attacks with SPG colleagues. He "expressed virulently anti-Catholic views ... and made it known ... that he had strong links to the UVF. A Special Branch recommendation that he be excluded after his probationary period was overridden by an inspector's report that described him as 'one of the best, if not the best, constables attached to my section (of the B Specials)'". McCaughey said of his RUC Special Patrol Group unit: ”Our colour code was Orange and it was Orange by nature and several of us were paramilitaries. Our proud boast was that we would never have a Catholic in it. We did actually have a Catholic once, a guy called Danny from Dungannon
Dungannon
Dungannon is a medium-sized town in County Tyrone, Northern Ireland. It is the third-largest town in the county and a population of 11,139 people was recorded in the 2001 Census. In August 2006, Dungannon won Ulster In Bloom's Best Kept Town Award for the fifth time...
. The day after he joined we had him dangling out from the back of a Land Rover with his chin inches from the road. He lasted a week”.
Conviction for murder
McCaughey was arrested in 1980 along with SPG colleague John WeirJohn Weir (loyalist)
John Oliver Weir , is an Ulster loyalist born in the Republic of Ireland. He served as an officer in Northern Ireland's Royal Ulster Constabulary's Special Patrol Group , and was a volunteer in the illegal Ulster Volunteer Force...
. He admitted to a number of other sectarian murders. However, the two were convicted of just three crimes, murder, kidnapping and attempted murder. McCaughey served 16 years. He admitted the 1977 sectarian murder of chemist William Strathern, a Catholic. In 1977, the leader of the UVF's Mid-Ulster brigade, Robin Jackson
Robin Jackson
Robert John "Robin" Jackson, known as the Jackal was a Northern Irish loyalist who held the rank of brigadier in the Ulster Volunteer Force during the period of violent religious and political conflict in Northern Ireland known as the Troubles.From his home in the small village of Donaghcloney,...
, who had allegedly killed a Catholic civilian in 1973, was named in court as the gunman who shot William Strathern in Ahoghill, County Antrim
Ahoghill
Ahoghill or Ahohill is a large village in County Antrim, Northern Ireland, four miles from Ballymena. It has a population of 3,055 people . It is within the Borough of Ballymena....
, for which McCaughey and John Weir were convicted. Jackson was not questioned, for "operational reasons" which have never been detailed."
McCaughey also pleaded guilty to the kidnapping of a Catholic priest, Father Hugh Murphy, in retaliation for the kidnapping and killing of two members of the security forces by the Provisional Irish Republican Army
Provisional Irish Republican Army
The Provisional Irish Republican Army is an Irish republican paramilitary organisation whose aim was to remove Northern Ireland from the United Kingdom and bring about a socialist republic within a united Ireland by force of arms and political persuasion...
. Fr. Murphy was released unharmed after a plea from Ian Paisley
Ian Paisley
Ian Richard Kyle Paisley, Baron Bannside, PC is a politician and church minister in Northern Ireland. As the leader of the Democratic Unionist Party , he and Sinn Féin's Martin McGuinness were elected First Minister and deputy First Minister respectively on 8 May 2007.In addition to co-founding...
. He also admitted to a gun and bomb attack on a pub, the Rock Bar, in Keady
Keady
Keady is a town in County Armagh, Northern Ireland. It is situated south of Armagh city and very close to the border with the Republic of Ireland. The town had a population of 2,960 people in the 2001 Census....
in 1977 in which he had tried to assassinate IRA member Dessie O'Hare
Dessie O'Hare
Dessie O'Hare , also known as "The Border Fox", is an Irish republican paramilitary, who was once the most wanted man in Ireland....
. McCaughey shot and seriously injured a man who prevented him entering the pub, which he intended to spray with machine gun fire. The bomb also failed to explode and O'Hare survived unharmed. Two other RUC officers were handed suspended sentences for their part in the bombing. The guns used in the attack were the same ones used in the murder of three Catholic brothers Anthony, John and Brian Reavey in Armagh on 4 January 1976. McCaughey was also implicated in the killings of three members of the O'Dowd family - Barry, his brother Declan and their uncle Joe - targeted 10 minutes after the Reaveys. See Reavey and O'Dowd killings
Reavey and O'Dowd killings
The Reavey and O'Dowd killings took place on 4 January 1976 in County Armagh, Northern Ireland. Volunteers from the Ulster Volunteer Force , a loyalist paramilitary group, shot dead five Catholic civilians – two from the Reavey family and three from the O'Dowd family – in two co-ordinated attacks....
. McCaughey told the surviving Reavey brother in 1988: that he was at the house with three other attackers but fired no shots.
McCaughey claimed that the 'Kingsmill massacre
Kingsmill massacre
The Kingsmill massacre took place on 5 January 1976 near the village of Kingsmill in south County Armagh, Northern Ireland. Ten Protestant men were taken from a minibus and shot dead by a group calling itself the South Armagh Republican Action Force...
' of 10 Protestant civilians the following day caused him to pass RUC intelligence to loyalist paramilitaries. He was one of the first police officers on the scene and recalled that
Further allegations
Weir and McCaughey implicated colleagues in at least eleven other sectarian murders. McCaughey claimed that many local RUC and Ulster Defence RegimentUlster Defence Regiment
The Ulster Defence Regiment was an infantry regiment of the British Army which became operational in 1970, formed on similar lines to other British reserve forces but with the operational role of defence of life or property in Northern Ireland against armed attack or sabotage...
personnel were working with the loyalist paramilitaries in the Armagh area in what became known as the Glenanne gang
Glenanne gang
The Glenanne gang was a name given, since 2003, to a loose alliance of Northern Irish loyalist extremists who carried out sectarian killings and bomb attacks in the 1970s against the Irish Catholic and Irish nationalist community. Most of its attacks took place in the area of County Armagh and mid...
. The Barron Enquiry into the Dublin and Monaghan bombings
Dublin and Monaghan Bombings
The Dublin and Monaghan bombings of 17 May 1974 were a series of car bombings in Dublin and Monaghan in the Republic of Ireland. The attacks killed 33 civilians and wounded almost 300 – the highest number of casualties in any single day during the conflict known as The Troubles.A loyalist...
of 1974, found a chain of ballistic history linking weapons and killings, to which McCaughey admitted involvement. These included, "in 1975, three murders at Donnelly's bar in Silverbridge, the murders of two men at a fake UDR checkpoint, the murder of IRA man John Francis Green
John Francis Green
John Francis Green , was a leading member of the North Armagh Brigade of the Provisional IRA, holding the rank of Staff Captain and Intelligence Officer. He was killed in a farmhouse outside Castleblayney, County Monaghan, by members of the Mid-Ulster Brigade of the Ulster Volunteer Force...
in the Republic, the murders of members of the Miami showband and the murder of Dorothy Trainor in Portadown. In 1976, they included the murders of three members of the Reavey family, and the attack on the Rock Bar in Tassagh."
In addition "Barron found that it was probable the guns were kept at a farm at Glenanne belonging to James Mitchell, an RUC reservist ... from which a group of paramilitaries and members of the security forces ... carried out the massacres at Dublin and Monaghan ... The chain was unbroken because the perpetrators of these attacks weren't caught, or investigations were haphazard, or charges were dropped, or light or suspended sentences were given. The same individuals turn up again and again, but the links weren't noted. Some of the perpetrators weren't prosecuted despite evidence against them. Weir claimed that McCaughey was part of this "Glenanne gang
Glenanne gang
The Glenanne gang was a name given, since 2003, to a loose alliance of Northern Irish loyalist extremists who carried out sectarian killings and bomb attacks in the 1970s against the Irish Catholic and Irish nationalist community. Most of its attacks took place in the area of County Armagh and mid...
", although McCaughey disputed this. McCaughey refused to give evidence to Judge Barron's enquiry, claiming "I know nothing about it". Judge Barron disagreed. "The Inquiry agrees with the view of An Garda Siochana that Weir's allegations regarding the Dublin and Monaghan bombings must be treated with the utmost seriousness."
Prison and subsequent activities
In prison in the Maze, McCaughey completed a degree in Education and Social Science in 1994 from the Open UniversityOpen University
The Open University is a distance learning and research university founded by Royal Charter in the United Kingdom...
. He also claimed that he was "a devout member of Ian Paisley's Free Presbyterian Church
Free Presbyterian Church of Ulster
The Free Presbyterian Church is a Presbyterian denomination founded by the Rev. Ian Paisley in 1951. Most of its members live in Northern Ireland...
." McCaughey had had a long association with Paisley, founder and leader of the Free Presbyterian Church, and of the Democratic Unionist Party
Democratic Unionist Party
The Democratic Unionist Party is the larger of the two main unionist political parties in Northern Ireland. Founded by Ian Paisley and currently led by Peter Robinson, it is currently the largest party in the Northern Ireland Assembly and the fourth-largest party in the House of Commons of the...
(DUP), which McCaughey had originally joined in the 1960s.
He organised fund raising for the DUP in prison to help defend Peter Robinson
Peter Robinson (politician)
Peter David Robinson is the current First Minister of Northern Ireland and leader of the Democratic Unionist Party...
, its deputy leader, in a court case organising a sponsored run around the prison exercise yard. Ian Paisley wrote a letter of thanks to McCaughey in 1991, promising to try to help try to get his sentence shortened. Paisley wrote in his own handwriting: "'There is a door for you to get to the Secretary of State, a door which we were able to open'". The letter was made public by Paisley's opponents in the run up to the referendum on the Good Friday Agreement in 1998.
McCaughey was released in 1996. He appears to have become disillusioned with Ian Paisley
Ian Paisley
Ian Richard Kyle Paisley, Baron Bannside, PC is a politician and church minister in Northern Ireland. As the leader of the Democratic Unionist Party , he and Sinn Féin's Martin McGuinness were elected First Minister and deputy First Minister respectively on 8 May 2007.In addition to co-founding...
, allowing his membership of the Free Presbyterian Church to lapse by 1998. He declared himself "undecided" in the Good Friday referendum of that year: "I want to support this agreement. I want it to work, but don't want to be endorsing some republican plot." McCaughey became a member of the Progressive Unionist Party
Progressive Unionist Party
The Progressive Unionist Party is a small unionist political party in Northern Ireland. It was formed from the Independent Unionist Group operating in the Shankill area of Belfast, becoming the PUP in 1979...
, the party associated with the paramilitary Ulster Volunteer Force. He also started work as a self employed builder.
He became a prominent figure in the picketing of Our Lady's Roman Catholic Church in Harryville, Ballymena
Ballymena
Ballymena is a large town in County Antrim, Northern Ireland and the seat of Ballymena Borough Council. Ballymena had a population of 28,717 people in the 2001 Census....
, which was organised in protest against the re-routing of Orange Order marches. However, he denied he was the central organiser. He admitted, "I have done a few press releases" and that he had taken part in the church pickets "maybe six times" over a 21 week period.". McCaughey said he sympathised with the aim of the Harryville protest, which was "to secure civil rights for Orangemen in Dunloy He later claimed that he had "withdrawn from the protest because of a "witch hunt" against him by the nationalist media"
Some years later McCaughey joined the short lived United Loyalist Cultural Committee, a loyalist group which admitted to having members from the UVF and UDA. In 2001, the Committee on which McCaughey sat, threatened to hold regular weekly street protests in a Roman Catholic part of Ballymena until Irish tricolours were removed. The protest was followed by a loyalist attack to remove the flags in Fisherwick estate, Ballymena. Over twenty men were charged with breaching the peace in the incident. McCaughey organised a picket with 20 supporters on the day of the court hearing. He explained: "This is not a protest - we are here to show our sympathy for the boys."
In 2002 relatives of his victim William Strathearn were sickened to find out that McCaughey was entitled to his RUC pension for his previous years service in the RUC.When he was sent to prison the then RUC chief constable Jack Hermon opposed any pension for McCaughey but failed on a legal technicality.
McCaughey himself justified the pension stating I've earned it. I did 10 years service fair and square,and I can say that I'm not the only one with a past that has got the pension from the RUC."
In April 2004, McCaughey attended an official dinner with President of Ireland
President of Ireland
The President of Ireland is the head of state of Ireland. The President is usually directly elected by the people for seven years, and can be elected for a maximum of two terms. The presidency is largely a ceremonial office, but the President does exercise certain limited powers with absolute...
Mary McAleese
Mary McAleese
Mary Patricia McAleese served as the eighth President of Ireland from 1997 to 2011. She was the second female president and was first elected in 1997 succeeding Mary Robinson, making McAleese the world's first woman to succeed another as president. She was re-elected unopposed for a second term in...
in Aras an Uachtarain
Áras an Uachtaráin
Áras an Uachtaráin , formerly the Viceregal Lodge, is the official residence of the President of Ireland. It is located in the Phoenix Park on the northside of Dublin.-Origins:...
, the Presidential residence in Dublin. McCaughey declared that he intended "to invite the President to visit the staunchly Protestant Ballee and Harryville areas of Ballymena". McCaughey withdrew the invitation because of President McAleese's "Holocaust Day speech in which she compared Protestant prejudice towards Catholics to the Nazi hatred of Jews".
In July 2005 a meeting of the District Policing Partnership in the County Antrim village of Clogh
Clogh
Clogh is a small village in County Antrim, Northern Ireland, 9 miles from Ballymena. In the 2001 Census it had a population of 105 people. It is situated withinin the Glenravel ward of the Braid District of the Borough of Ballymena. It can also be spelt 'Clough'.Dunaghy Old Rectory, on the main...
had to abandoned after a loyalist protesters including McCaughey protested due to the presence of SDLP councillor and DPP chairman Declan O'Loan
Declan O'Loan
Declan O'Loan is a former member of the Northern Ireland Assembly in the North Antrim constituency, and a serving member of Ballymena Borough Council. He is a member of the Social Democratic and Labour Party , but the party whip was withdrawn on 25 May 2010.O'Loan was elected for the SDLP in the...
. Protesters shouted sectarian abuse at O'Loan and McCaughey stated the protest could have been avoided if O'Loan 'had accepted his total unacceptability' in Clogh.
In August 2005, McCaughey warned that loyalists were considering restarting the picket outside Harryville Roman Catholic Church in Ballymena if Protestant Orange Order marchers were rerouted from a mainly Roman Catholic area of the town.
When republicans proposed their first ever parade in Ballymena in 2005 to commemorate Operation Demetrius
Operation Demetrius
Operation Demetrius began in Northern Ireland on the morning of Monday 9 August 1971. Operation Demetrius was launched by the British Army and Royal Ulster Constabulary and involved arresting and interning people accused of being paramilitary members...
,to some surprise he didn't have any objections to the proposed parade as long as the route wasn't contentious.
McCaughey stood for election to Ballymena Borough Council, for the Progressive Unionist Party
Progressive Unionist Party
The Progressive Unionist Party is a small unionist political party in Northern Ireland. It was formed from the Independent Unionist Group operating in the Shankill area of Belfast, becoming the PUP in 1979...
(PUP) in Ballymena South 2001 (51 votes, 0.48% - one of two PUP candidates, PUP total: 94 votes, 1.4%) and 2005 (94 votes, 1.6% - sole PUP candidate). He also unsuccessfully contested North Antrim for the assembly elections in 2003 (230 votes, 0.5%).
Despite his past and previous convictions he was a member of an Orange Lodge in Ballymena.