Special Patrol Group (RUC)
Encyclopedia
The Special Patrol Group (SPG) 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 Royal Ulster Constabulary
(RUC) officer who colluded with the UVF, the Armagh based RUC Special Patrol Group regarded the loyalist paramilitaries as allies and passed personal information about Catholics and weapons to them and mounted sectarian killings of their own.
Another Special Patrol Group officer, Billy McCaughey
, told the journalist Toby Harnden
that, "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 Dungivin. 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".
The Special Patrol Group was temporarily restricted from patrolling republican areas such as Crossmaglen
and Silverbridge. However, some of the restrictions were lifted after Weir and another RUC officer met Harold McCusker
, the local Unionist
MP
and asked for them to be lifted.
in the Armagh area, and that SPG members had been involved in many of the loyalist killings in South Armagh in the lead up to the republican Kingsmill massacre
of ten Protestants in January 1976. In particular, he claimed that his unit had been behind the bombing of two pubs (McCardles and Donnelly's) in nationalist
Crossmaglen
in November and December 1975 respectively, leading to five deaths . A report into collusion in 2006 also found that SPG weapons had been used in the killing of six Catholics on the day prior to the Kingsmill attack .
McCaughey reported that he provided RUC cars as escorts to the UVF. He also alleged that a member of the Ulster Defence Regiment
in the area, Robert McConnell "was a very senior member in the UVF and deeply involved in military intelligence". According to McCaughey, the senior officers of the RUC and British Army turned a blind eye to the SPG's activities, because, "they didn't mind a wee bit of terror being spread" .
In June 1978, McCaughey reports that he and three other SPG members, constables David Wilson, Laurence McClure and Ian Mitchell, heard from the RUC Special Branch that IRA
member Dessie O'Hare
was in the Rock Bar in Keady
. They planned to attack the bar, during their lunch hour, using an unmarked police car for transport and a 10 lb gelignite
bomb and machine guns. However, they failed to kill O'Hare. McCaughey was prevented from entering the pub by a customer, whom he shot twice in the chest. The bomb they planted also failed to detonate. According to McCaughey, "some of the others were back in the police station in time to get the emergency call" . The man McCaughey shot in the attack survived.
The guns used in the attack were the same ones used in the murder of six Catholics, the Reavey and O'Dowd killings
, on 4 January 1976.
Weir accused his colleagues of participation in 11 murders. An independent inquiry in 2006 found that in 7 out of 8 cases, ballistics tests corroborated his claims, linking the murders to weapons carried by RUC officers . McCaughey claimed that many local RUC and Ulster Defence Regiment
personnel were working with the loyalist paramilitaries in the Armagh area. The Barron report found that a group of loyalist paramilitaries, RUC officers, and British military personnel operating out of a farm in Glenanne was responsible for up to 31 killings. This group become known as the Glenanne gang
.
According to Toby Harnden, "the years when McCaughey and the RUC Special Patrol Group were at large represented the only period when loyalist paramilitaries made forays deep into South Armagh, a republican stronghold".
John Weir claimed in 1999: "Some day it will come out that there were people high up, either Special Branch or army intelligence, who were using us."
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...
was a police unit tasked with counter terrorism. Each SPG had 30 members. Many of the SPG units were accused of collusion
Collusion
Collusion is an agreement between two or more persons, sometimes illegal and therefore secretive, to limit open competition by deceiving, misleading, or defrauding others of their legal rights, or to obtain an objective forbidden by law typically by defrauding or gaining an unfair advantage...
with the illegal paramilitary group the Ulster Volunteer Force, particularly the actions of a unit based in Armagh
Armagh
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...
.
A partisan force
According to John WeirJohn Weir
Sir John Weir, GCVO, Royal Victorian Chain , MB ChB Glasgow 1907, FFHom 1943, Physician Royal to several twentieth century monarchs....
, a 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...
(RUC) officer who colluded with the UVF, the Armagh based RUC Special Patrol Group regarded the loyalist paramilitaries as allies and passed personal information about Catholics and weapons to them and mounted sectarian killings of their own.
Another Special Patrol Group officer, Billy McCaughey
Billy McCaughey
William "Billy" McCaughey was a member of the Royal Ulster Constabulary's Special Patrol Group and the illegal Ulster Volunteer Force in the 1970s. He was imprisoned for 16 years for murder from 1980 to 1996...
, told the journalist Toby Harnden
Toby Harnden
Toby Harnden is an Anglo-American journalist and author. He has been US editor of The Daily Telegraph since 2006.-Background:...
that, "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 Dungivin. 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".
The Special Patrol Group was temporarily restricted from patrolling republican areas such as Crossmaglen
Crossmaglen
Crossmaglen or Crosmaglen is a village and townland in south County Armagh, Northern Ireland. It had a population of 1,459 people in the 2001 Census and is the largest village in south Armagh...
and Silverbridge. However, some of the restrictions were lifted after Weir and another RUC officer met Harold McCusker
Harold McCusker
James Harold McCusker was a Northern Ireland Ulster Unionist Party politician who served as his party's deputy leader....
, the local Unionist
Ulster Unionist Party
The Ulster Unionist Party – sometimes referred to as the Official Unionist Party or, in a historic sense, simply the Unionist Party – is the more moderate of the two main unionist political parties in Northern Ireland...
MP
Member of Parliament
A Member of Parliament is a representative of the voters to a :parliament. In many countries with bicameral parliaments, the term applies specifically to members of the lower house, as upper houses often have a different title, such as senate, and thus also have different titles for its members,...
and asked for them to be lifted.
Sectarian attacks
McCaughey stated that "24 or 25" RUC officers were working with the UVF and the Glenanne gangGlenanne 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...
in the Armagh area, and that SPG members had been involved in many of the loyalist killings in South Armagh in the lead up to the republican 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 ten Protestants in January 1976. In particular, he claimed that his unit had been behind the bombing of two pubs (McCardles and Donnelly's) in nationalist
Irish nationalism
Irish nationalism manifests itself in political and social movements and in sentiment inspired by a love for Irish culture, language and history, and as a sense of pride in Ireland and in the Irish people...
Crossmaglen
Crossmaglen
Crossmaglen or Crosmaglen is a village and townland in south County Armagh, Northern Ireland. It had a population of 1,459 people in the 2001 Census and is the largest village in south Armagh...
in November and December 1975 respectively, leading to five deaths . A report into collusion in 2006 also found that SPG weapons had been used in the killing of six Catholics on the day prior to the Kingsmill attack .
McCaughey reported that he provided RUC cars as escorts to the UVF. He also alleged that a member of the Ulster Defence Regiment
Ulster 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...
in the area, Robert McConnell "was a very senior member in the UVF and deeply involved in military intelligence". According to McCaughey, the senior officers of the RUC and British Army turned a blind eye to the SPG's activities, because, "they didn't mind a wee bit of terror being spread" .
In June 1978, McCaughey reports that he and three other SPG members, constables David Wilson, Laurence McClure and Ian Mitchell, heard from the RUC Special Branch that IRA
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...
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....
was in 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....
. They planned to attack the bar, during their lunch hour, using an unmarked police car for transport and a 10 lb gelignite
Gelignite
Gelignite, also known as blasting gelatin or simply jelly, is an explosive material consisting of collodion-cotton dissolved in either nitroglycerine or nitroglycol and mixed with wood pulp and saltpetre .It was invented in 1875 by Alfred Nobel, who had earlier invented dynamite...
bomb and machine guns. However, they failed to kill O'Hare. McCaughey was prevented from entering the pub by a customer, whom he shot twice in the chest. The bomb they planted also failed to detonate. According to McCaughey, "some of the others were back in the police station in time to get the emergency call" . The man McCaughey shot in the attack survived.
The guns used in the attack were the same ones used in the murder of six Catholics, the 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....
, on 4 January 1976.
Arrest of Weir and McCaughey, disbandment of SPG
John Weir and Billy McCaughey were arrested in 1980 and confessed to their activities in the preceding years. They were both convicted of the murder of Catholic William Strathearn in 1977. The Special Patrol Group was subsequently stood down.Weir accused his colleagues of participation in 11 murders. An independent inquiry in 2006 found that in 7 out of 8 cases, ballistics tests corroborated his claims, linking the murders to weapons carried by RUC officers . McCaughey claimed that many local RUC and Ulster Defence Regiment
Ulster 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. The Barron report found that a group of loyalist paramilitaries, RUC officers, and British military personnel operating out of a farm in Glenanne was responsible for up to 31 killings. This group become 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...
.
According to Toby Harnden, "the years when McCaughey and the RUC Special Patrol Group were at large represented the only period when loyalist paramilitaries made forays deep into South Armagh, a republican stronghold".
John Weir claimed in 1999: "Some day it will come out that there were people high up, either Special Branch or army intelligence, who were using us."