Billy McCaughey
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William McCaughey (c. 1950 – 8 February 2006) was a member of the
Royal Ulster Constabulary The Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) was the police force in Northern Ireland from 1922 to 2001. It was founded on 1 June 1922 as a successor to the Royal Irish Constabulary (RIC) Richard Doherty, ''The Thin Green Line – The History of the ...
's Special Patrol Group and the illegal Ulster Volunteer Force's Glennane gang in the 1970s. He was imprisoned for 16 years for murder from 1980 to 1996. On his release he worked as a
loyalist Loyalism, in the United Kingdom, its overseas territories and its former colonies, refers to the allegiance to the British crown or the United Kingdom. In North America, the most common usage of the term refers to loyalty to the British Cr ...
and
Orange Order The Loyal Orange Institution, commonly known as the Orange Order, is an international Protestant fraternal order based in Northern Ireland and primarily associated with Ulster Protestants. It also has lodges in England, Grand Orange Lodge of ...
activist until his death in 2006.


Early life

Growing up a
Presbyterian Presbyterianism is a historically Reformed Protestant tradition named for its form of church government by representative assemblies of elders, known as "presbyters". Though other Reformed churches are structurally similar, the word ''Pr ...
in a townland outside Ahoghill,
County Antrim County Antrim (named after the town of Antrim, County Antrim, Antrim, ) is one of the six counties of Northern Ireland, located within the historic Provinces of Ireland, province of Ulster. Adjoined to the north-east shore of Lough Neagh, the c ...
, McCaughey was given the
nickname A nickname, in some circumstances also known as a sobriquet, or informally a "moniker", is an informal substitute for the proper name of a person, place, or thing, used to express affection, playfulness, contempt, or a particular character trait ...
"The Protestant Boy" which he carried into adulthood.Dillon, Martin (1989). ''The Dirty War''. London: Arrow Books. p.222 His father, Alexander McCaughey, was an elder in the local Trinity Presbyterian Church. He was described by investigative journalist Martin Dillon as a "pillar of respectability". McCaughey served in the
Ulster Special Constabulary The Ulster Special Constabulary (USC; commonly called the "B-Specials" or "B Men") was a quasi-military Military reserve, reserve special constable police force in what would later become Northern Ireland. It was set up in October 1920, short ...
(USC), better known as 'the B Specials', and when that was disbanded, he joined the regular
Royal Ulster Constabulary The Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) was the police force in Northern Ireland from 1922 to 2001. It was founded on 1 June 1922 as a successor to the Royal Irish Constabulary (RIC) Richard Doherty, ''The Thin Green Line – The History of the ...
(RUC). 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.


Special Patrol Group

In the early 1970s, McCaughey was assigned to the RUC Special Patrol Group (SPG), a specialist "anti-terrorist" unit, based in
Armagh Armagh ( ; , , " Macha's height") is a city and the county town of County Armagh, in Northern Ireland, as well as a civil parish. It is the ecclesiastical capital of Ireland – the seat of the Archbishops of Armagh, the Primates of All ...
. McCaughey co-operated extensively with the UVF Mid-Ulster Brigade and carried out a number of attacks on their behalf, along 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 SPG 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 (, ) is a town in County Tyrone, Northern Ireland. It is the second-largest town in the county (after Omagh) and had a population of 16,282 at the United Kingdom Census 2011, 2021 Census. The Dungannon and South Tyrone Borough Counci ...
. 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".McKay, Susan (2000). ''Northern Protestants: An Unsettled People''. Belfast: Blackstaff Press. p.195 Harnden, Toby (2000). ''Bandit Country''. Coronet Books In 1977 he was charged with stealing a table from the home of Cllr. Elsie Kelsey, the then Mayor of
Lisburn Lisburn ( ; ) is a city in Northern Ireland. It is southwest of Belfast city centre, on the River Lagan, which forms the boundary between County Antrim and County Down. First laid out in the 17th century by English and Welsh settlers, with t ...
. McCaughey had been on escort duty for
Ulster Unionist Party The Ulster Unionist Party (UUP) is a Unionism in Ireland, unionist political party in Northern Ireland. The party was founded as the Ulster Unionist Council in 1905, emerging from the Irish Unionist Alliance in Ulster. Under Edward Carson, it l ...
(UUP) politician John Taylor, who was attending a party in the house at the time.


Conviction for murder

McCaughey was arrested in 1980 along with SPG colleague John Weir, and admitted to a number of 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."Hatred in Harryville", Henry McDonald, ''Sunday Times'', 9 February 1997 In 1977, the leader of the UVF Mid-Ulster Brigade, Robin Jackson, was named in court as the gunman who shot 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."Barron throws light on a little shock of horrors", Susan McKay, ''Sunday Tribune'', 14 December 2003 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 The Provisional Irish Republican Army (Provisional IRA), officially known as the Irish Republican Army (IRA; ) and informally known as the Provos, was an Irish republican paramilitary force that sought to end British rule in Northern Ireland ...
(IRA). 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. McCaughey shot and seriously injured a man who prevented him entering the pub, which he intended to spray with machine gun fire. The bomb failed to explode. 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 The Kingsmill massacre, also referred to as the Whitecross massacre, was a mass shooting that took place on 5 January 1976 near the village of Whitecross, County Armagh, Whitecross in south County Armagh, Northern Ireland. Gunmen stopped a mini ...
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 Regiment The Ulster Defence Regiment (UDR) was an infantry regiment of the British Army established in 1970, with a comparatively short existence ending in 1992. Raised through public appeal, newspaper and television advertisements,Potter p25 their offi ...
(UDR) personnel were working with loyalist paramilitaries in the Armagh area in what became known as the Glenanne gang. The Barron Enquiry into the
Dublin and Monaghan bombings The Dublin and Monaghan bombings of 17 May 1974 were a series of co-ordinated bombings in Dublin and Monaghan, Ireland, carried out by the Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF). Three car bombs exploded in Dublin during the evening rush hour and a ...
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 Mr Justice Barron's enquiry, claiming "I know nothing about it"."He should have been slapped in handcuffs", Martin Breen, ''News of the World'', 6 March 2005 Mr Justice 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."Houses of the Oireachtas: Joint Committee on Justice, Equality, Defence and Women's Rights Interim Report on the Report into the Independent Commission of Inquiry into the Dublin and Monaghan Bombings (The Barron Report). December 2003. p.162
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Prison and subsequent activities

In prison in the
Maze A maze is a path or collection of paths, typically from an entrance to a goal. The word is used to refer both to branching tour puzzles through which the solver must find a route, and to simpler non-branching ("unicursal") patterns that lead ...
, McCaughey completed a degree in Education and Social Science in 1994 from the
Open University The Open University (OU) is a Public university, public research university and the largest university in the United Kingdom by List of universities in the United Kingdom by enrolment, number of students. The majority of the OU's undergraduate ...
. 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 The Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) is a Unionism in Ireland, unionist, Ulster loyalism, loyalist, British nationalist and national conservative political party in Northern Ireland. It was founded in 1971 during the Troubles by Ian Paisley, who ...
(DUP), which McCaughey had originally joined in the 1960s. He organised fundraising in prison to help defend DUP deputy leader Peter Robinson 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 The Good Friday Agreement (GFA) or Belfast Agreement ( or ; or ) is a pair of agreements signed on 10 April (Good Friday) 1998 that ended most of the violence of the Troubles, an ethno-nationalist conflict in Northern Ireland since the la ...
in 1998. McCaughey was released in 1996. He appears to have become disillusioned with Paisley, allowing his membership of the Free Presbyterian Church to lapse by 1998."Voices of the people caught up in the Troubles", ''Glasgow Herald'', 20 May 1998. After his release he was approached by people in
Ballymena Ballymena ( ; from , meaning 'the middle townland') is a town in County Antrim, Northern Ireland. It had a population of 31,205 people at the 2021 United Kingdom census, making it the List of localities in Northern Ireland by population, seven ...
who told him "Great job – pity you got caught", which he disagreed with. 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 (PUP), the party associated with the UVF. He also started work as a self-employed builder. He became a prominent figure in the weekly picketing of Our Lady's Roman Catholic Church in Harryville,
Ballymena Ballymena ( ; from , meaning 'the middle townland') is a town in County Antrim, Northern Ireland. It had a population of 31,205 people at the 2021 United Kingdom census, making it the List of localities in Northern Ireland by population, seven ...
, which was organised in protest against the re-routing of
Orange Order The Loyal Orange Institution, commonly known as the Orange Order, is an international Protestant fraternal order based in Northern Ireland and primarily associated with Ulster Protestants. It also has lodges in England, Grand Orange Lodge of ...
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'. He was pictured wearing his Orange Order sash during one occasion at the protest. The
Ulster Unionist Party The Ulster Unionist Party (UUP) is a Unionism in Ireland, unionist political party in Northern Ireland. The party was founded as the Ulster Unionist Council in 1905, emerging from the Irish Unionist Alliance in Ulster. Under Edward Carson, it l ...
MP Ken Maginnis had called for McCaughey to be returned to jail for his role in the Harryville protest. 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 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 McCaughey's victim William Strathearn were upset to discover 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." Along with fellow PUP members in Ballymena in 2003, McCaughey took part in a campaign to stop racist attacks in the town. Immigrant workers from Romania and the Philippines residing in loyalist areas had their homes attacked, leading McCaughey to encourage young loyalists in the town not to join racist groups. In April 2004, McCaughey attended an official dinner with
Her Excellency Excellency is an honorific style (manner of address), style given to certain high-level officers of a sovereign state, officials of an international organization, or members of an aristocracy. Once entitled to the title "Excellency", the holder ...
Mary McAleese Mary Patricia McAleese ( ; ; ; born 27 June 1951) is an Irish activist lawyer, academic, author, and former politician who served as the president of Ireland from November 1997 to November 2011. McAleese was first elected as president in 1997, ...
, the
President of Ireland The president of Ireland () is the head of state of Republic of Ireland, Ireland and the supreme commander of the Defence Forces (Ireland), Irish Defence Forces. The presidency is a predominantly figurehead, ceremonial institution, serving as ...
, at
Áras an Uachtaráin (; "Residence of the President"), formerly the Viceregal Lodge, is the List of official residences, official residence and principal workplace of the President of Ireland. It is located off Chesterfield Avenue in the Phoenix Park in Dublin, ...
, 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 then 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 be abandoned after 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 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 McCaughey didn't have any objections to the proposed parade as long as the route wasn't contentious. In 2001, McCaughey stood for election to Ballymena Borough Council, for the PUP in Ballymena South (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%). His inability to gain election was often mocked by his political rivals.


Personal life

McCaughey was married and had three children with his wife Angela. After McCaughey's arrest in 1978, his wife divorced him. In 1980, after the Cullybackey branch of the Apprentice Boys unfurled a banner presented to them by McCaughey, his former wife voiced her opposition and announced her intention to change her name and those of her children by deed poll.Dillon, Martin (1989). ''The Dirty War''. London: Arrow Books. p. 229 In 2001, his son Kenneth stood for election to Ballymena Borough Council as a PUP candidate. He was unsuccessful, receiving 53 votes (0.5% of the total votes cast). Despite his convictions, McCaughey was a member of an Orange Lodge in Ballymena, previously a member of a Lurgan lodge and the Royal Black Preceptory. However, he was expelled from the latter.


Death

McCaughey died of
lung cancer Lung cancer, also known as lung carcinoma, is a malignant tumor that begins in the lung. Lung cancer is caused by genetic damage to the DNA of cells in the airways, often caused by cigarette smoking or inhaling damaging chemicals. Damaged ...
on 8 February 2006. He was believed to have contracted cancer over a year previously and was thought to be in remission after treatment. The local ''Ballymena Times'' reported, "McCaughey apparently underwent a 'Road To Damascus' style conversion - supporting the peace process and leading a campaign against Neo Nazis". A tribute was also reported from a leading Irish Trade Unionist Peter Bunting. Bunting's father was once held at gun point by McCaughey in 1971 due to the fact he was a Catholic and was forced to leave his job. Bunting stated "Billy McCaughey was prepared to kill for what he saw as his people. At the end of his days, he had lived for more people than he could have ever dreamed about in 1971. I would also like to think that, if my father had lived long enough to witness the full life of Billy McCaughey, then he too would have recognised him as a brother and a comrade.""Trade Union tribute to Billy McCaughey"
Ballymena Times 14 October 2007 Retrieved 10 May 2012
David Ervine described him as having an "immense effect on people's attitudes." He was buried in his native Ahoghill."McCaughey 'was a noted progressive"
''Ballymena Times'' 16 February 2006


References

{{DEFAULTSORT:McCaughey, Billy 1950s births 2006 deaths Alumni of the Open University Police misconduct in Northern Ireland Deaths from lung cancer in Northern Ireland Progressive Unionist Party politicians Royal Ulster Constabulary officers Ulster loyalists imprisoned on terrorism charges Ulster Special Constabulary officers Ulster Volunteer Force members People from Northern Ireland convicted of murder People from Northern Ireland convicted of war crimes People convicted of murder by Northern Ireland Ulster Protestant Volunteers members Police officers from County Antrim People from Ahoghill