On 3 March 1991 a unit of the loyalistUVF Mid-Ulster Brigade shot dead three Provisional IRA members and a Catholic civilian at Boyle's Bar in the staunchly republican village of Cappagh, County Tyrone, Northern Ireland. Although nobody was ever charged in connection with the killings, it was widely believed by nationalists and much of the press that the attack had been planned and led by Billy Wright, the leader of the Ulster Volunteer Force's Mid-Ulster Brigade's Portadown unit. Wright took credit for the attack and boasted to TheGuardian newspaper, "I would look back and say Cappagh was probably our best", though some sources are sceptical about his claim.
On Sunday 3 March 1991, a team from the Mid-Ulster Brigade of the Ulster Volunteer Force drove into Cappagh, County Tyrone intent on killing a local republican who was a regular customer at Boyle's Bar. Their target was reportedly Brian Arthurs, believed to be a senior figure in the Provisional IRA East Tyrone Brigade.[1][2] His brother Declan had been killed in the Loughgall ambush in 1987.[1] A second UVF team, acting as a 'recce vehicle', had guided the first team in the journey from Portadown.[3] They parked up on the outskirts of the village while the first vehicle 'silently glided' up the hill towards Cappagh.[1][2]
Around 10:30pm a blue Peugeot 305 pulled up outside the bar.[3] It was occupied by four IRA members: John Quinn (23) was driving, and his passengers were Malcolm Nugent (20), Dwayne O'Donnell (17), and Malachy Rafferty (21).[3][2][4] Two men in balaclavas, armed with vz. 58 assault rifles, opened fire before Quinn had even turned the engine off.[5][3] Quinn and Nugent, sitting in the front seats, were killed immediately. O'Donnell ran from the vehicle but was shot repeatedly by one of the gunmen. This failed escape likely saved Rafferty, who remained hidden in the car after being wounded in the opening salvo of fire.[3]
Meanwhile, Boyle's customers barricaded the door, which prevented the UVF gunmen from attacking Brian Arthurs. Frustrated, one of the gunmen stuck his gun barrel through a toilet window and opened fire, killing Thomas Armstrong (52), who had been sheltering inside.[3] The two gunmen then returned to their car and were driven away by a third man. As he told a later inquest, Rafferty 'lay for a while' before running towards the door of Boyle's and shouting his name to get inside. He then passed out.[2]
According to a former RUC Special Branch officer interviewed by author Jonathan Trigg, the UVF hit team did not follow the recce vehicle back toward Portadown. Instead, to 'throw the Provos off the scent' they stayed overnight locally, opting for a nearby farm owned by a UVF associate.[3]
Aftermath
After the attack, the UVF issued a statement:
This was not a sectarian attack on the Catholic community, but was an operation directed at the very roots of the Provisional IRA command structure in the Armagh–Tyrone area.[4]
Billy Wright, leader of the UVF in Portadown, took credit.[1] Senior figures in the UVF later insisted that Wright was not responsible at all, although Trigg casts doubt on these claims because they came at a time when Wright had split from the UVF to form the rival Loyalist Volunteer Force.[6][1][3] Trigg's Special Branch source named Wright as overseeing the attack, though they also indicated the idea originated in Belfast.[3] In addition, Clifford Peeples, a former loyalist prisoner, was adamant that Wright had been the key figure behind the killings:
as for Cappagh. . . it was Mid-Ulster UVF, and Billy Wright was Brigade Commander Mid-Ulster UVF, end of story.[3]
It quickly leaked that all the dead except Armstrong were active IRA members. Quinn was the most well-known, having been alongside Martin McCaughey during a March 1990 shootout in which the latter had been seriously wounded by an undercover soldier.[3] However, the IRA did not acknowledge Quinn, Nugent and O'Donnell for a year, and the trio 'were depicted in Sinn Féin propaganda as innocent Catholic victims' of sectarian violence — this was apparently aimed at 'currying sympathy' in the Irish republic, where people were less likely to know the truth, though it 'enraged' many republicans in Tyrone.[7]
Allegations
A journalist from the Philadelphia Inquirer interviewed Cappagh locals at the joint funeral of the four victims, reporting a belief among many that the killings could only have been carried out with the cooperation of the security forces.[8] Billy Wright, boasting to an interviewer from The Guardian, alleged that members of the security forces had suggested they were pleased with the deaths:
I genuinely believe that we were very successful, and that may sound morbid but they know that we hammered them into the ground and we didn't lose one volunteer. Indeed, members of the security forces had said that we done what they couldn't do, we put the East Tyrone brigade of the IRA on the run.[9]
This 'gave additional oxygen to the oft-repeated charges of collusion' between the security forces and militant loyalists.[3]Peter Taylor, in his book Loyalists: War and Peace in Northern Ireland, argued the attackers needed 'some degree of assistance' from the security forces in order to know the movements of the IRA members in the car.[6] Taylor suggested cooperation would most likely have come from local members of the Ulster Defence Regiment (UDR).[6] As revealed in a 2020 report by the Historical Enquiries Team, three serving UDR soldiers were arrested in December 1991 and questioned for several days, but were eventually released without charge.[10]
Conversely, other commentators have downplayed accusations of collusion on the basis the attackers were likely unaware that Quinn, Nugent and O'Donnell were IRA members. Taking issue with the suggestion of Jim Cusack and Henry McDonald in their 1997 book UVF — that the UVF gunmen were expecting the arrival of an IRA car — author and former soldier Ken Wharton instead described the incident as a 'sectarian attack' and the dead IRA men as victims of poor timing, having made a 'spur of the moment' decision to visit Boyle's.[2] Jonathan Trigg has also assigned a sectarian motive, and suggested the UVF hit team were probably unsure who they'd killed. He made the further point the attack was likely designed as a repeat of an earlier 1974 UVF operation in which retired farmer Daniel Hughes was killed at Boyle's.[3]
Provisional IRA retaliation
The Provisional IRA initially did not acknowledge that three of the victims were within its ranks, apparently with the aim of garnering sympathy from the wider world (particularly in the Republic) towards nationalists in Northern Ireland.[11]
The first reprisal took place on 9 April 1991, when alleged UVF member Derek Ferguson, a cousin of local MP Reverend William McCrea, was shot and killed in Coagh by members of the East Tyrone Brigade. His family denied any paramilitary links.[12] In the months following the 1991 shootings, two former UDR soldiers were killed by the IRA near Cappagh. One of them was shot dead while driving along Altmore Road on 5 August 1991.[13] The other former soldier was blown up by an IRA bomb planted inside his car at Kildress on 25 April 1993; it was claimed that he had loyalist paramilitary connections.[14] The 1993 bombing led to allegations that the IRA was killing Protestant land-owners in Tyrone and Fermanagh in an orchestrated campaign to drive Protestants out of the region.[15] There were at least five botched IRA attempts against the life of Billy Wright before the INLA succeeded in killing him in 1997 inside the Maze Prison.[16]
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