William McMillen (19 May 1927 – 28 April 1975), aka Liam McMillen, was an
Irish republican
Irish republicanism () is the political movement for an Irish republic, void of any British rule. Throughout its centuries of existence, it has encompassed various tactics and identities, simultaneously elective and militant and has been both w ...
activist and an officer of the
Official Irish Republican Army
The Official Irish Republican Army or Official IRA (OIRA; ) was an Irish republican paramilitary group whose goal was to remove Northern Ireland from the United Kingdom and create a " workers' republic" encompassing all of Ireland. It emerge ...
(OIRA) from
Belfast
Belfast (, , , ; from ) is the capital city and principal port of Northern Ireland, standing on the banks of the River Lagan and connected to the open sea through Belfast Lough and the North Channel (Great Britain and Ireland), North Channel ...
,
Northern Ireland
Northern Ireland ( ; ) is a Countries of the United Kingdom, part of the United Kingdom in the north-east of the island of Ireland. It has been #Descriptions, variously described as a country, province or region. Northern Ireland shares Repub ...
. He was killed in 1975, in a feud with the
Irish National Liberation Army
The Irish National Liberation Army (INLA, ) is an Irish republicanism, Irish republican Socialism, socialist paramilitary group formed on 8 December 1974, during the 30-year period of conflict known as "the Troubles". The group seeks to remove ...
(INLA).
Early republican activity
McMillen was born in
Belfast
Belfast (, , , ; from ) is the capital city and principal port of Northern Ireland, standing on the banks of the River Lagan and connected to the open sea through Belfast Lough and the North Channel (Great Britain and Ireland), North Channel ...
Irish tricolour
The national flag of Ireland (), frequently referred to in Ireland as 'the tricolour' () and elsewhere as the Irish tricolour, is a vertical tricolour of green (at the hoist), white and orange. The proportions of the flag are 1:2 (that is t ...
in the window of his election office in the lower Falls area, this sparked a riot between republicans, loyalists and 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 ...
(RUC). There had been tensions on the issue since the
government of Northern Ireland
A government is the system or group of people governing an organized community, generally a state.
In the case of its broad associative definition, government normally consists of legislature, executive, and judiciary. Government is a ...
banned the flying of the tricolour under the Flags and Emblems Act.
In October 1964, during the general election campaign, a photo of McMillen was placed in the window of the election office in Divis Street flanked on one side by the Starry Plough flag and on the other by the tricolour. Initially the authorities did not intervene, but they were jolted into action following threats from the Reverend
Ian Paisley
Ian Richard Kyle Paisley, Baron Bannside, (6 April 1926 – 12 September 2014) was a loyalist politician and Protestant religious leader from Northern Ireland who served as leader of the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) from 1971 to 2008 and ...
that if the flag was not removed he and his supporters would march on the office and remove it themselves. On the same night, Wednesday, 28 September 1964, a large force of the RUC armed with rifles,
Sten gun
The STEN (or Sten gun) is a British submachine gun chambered in 9×19mm which was used extensively by British and Commonwealth forces throughout World War II and during the Korean War. The Sten paired a simple design with a low production co ...
s, batons and crowbars smashed down the doors of McMillen's election HQ and removed the tricolour. The following day the IRA replaced the flag in the window and police attacked a crowd who had gathered to support McMillen. Rioting ensued. At around this time McMillen succeeded Billy McKee as the
Officer commanding
The commanding officer (CO) or commander, or sometimes, if the incumbent is a general officer, commanding general (CG), is the officer in command of a military unit. The commanding officer has ultimate authority over the unit, and is usually giv ...
(OC) of the Belfast Brigade.
McMillen was keen to work for the unity of Protestant and Catholic workers. Roy Garland recalled that McMillan's grandfather was master of an Orange lodge in Edinburgh and McMillan knew of that heritage and the meaning of the colours of the Irish flag. He prominently displayed in his election offices a verse of a poem by John Frazier, a Presbyterian from Co Offaly: "Till then the Orange lily be your badge my patriot brother. The everlasting green for me and we for one and other."
Civil rights movement and August 1969 riots
In 1967, McMillen was involved in the formation of the
Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association
The Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association (NICRA; ) was an organisation that campaigned for civil rights for Irish Catholics in Northern Ireland during the late 1960s and early 1970s. Formed in Belfast on 9 April 1967,unionists, leading to fears that Catholic areas would come under attack. In May 1969, when asked at an IRA army council meeting by Ruairà Ó Brádaigh how many weapons the Belfast Brigade had for defensive operations, McMillen stated they had only one pistol, a machine gun and some ammunition.
By 14 August 1969, serious rioting had broken out in Belfast and Catholic districts came under attack from both civilian unionists and the RUC. McMillen's IRA command by this point still had only a limited amount of weapons (one rifle, two sub-machine guns and nine handguns according to one account) because the leadership in
Dublin
Dublin is the capital and largest city of Republic of Ireland, Ireland. Situated on Dublin Bay at the mouth of the River Liffey, it is in the Provinces of Ireland, province of Leinster, and is bordered on the south by the Dublin Mountains, pa ...
were reluctant to release guns. While McMillen was involved in some armed actions on this day, he was widely blamed by those who established the Provisional IRA for the IRA's failure to adequately defend Catholic neighbourhoods from
Ulster loyalist
Ulster loyalism is a strand of Unionism in Ireland, Ulster unionism associated with working class Ulster Protestants in Northern Ireland. Like other unionists, loyalists support the continued existence of Northern Ireland (and formerly all of I ...
attack. He was arrested and temporarily detained by the RUC on the morning of 15 August, but was released shortly afterwards (see also Northern Ireland riots of August 1969).
McMillen's role in the 1969 riots was very important within IRA circles, as it was one of the major factors contributing to the split in the movement in late 1969. In a June 1972 lecture organised by
in Dublin, McMillen defended his conduct, stating that by 1969 the total membership of the Belfast IRA was approximately 120 men and their armaments had increased to a grand total of 24 weapons, most of which were short-range pistols.
Split in the IRA, confrontation with the British Army
In September, McMillen called a meeting of IRA commanders in Belfast. Billy McKee and several other republicans arrived at the meeting armed and demanded McMillen's resignation. He refused, but many of those unhappy with his leadership broke away and refused to take orders from McMillen or the Dublin IRA leadership. Most of them joined 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 ...
, when this group split off from the IRA in December 1969. McMillen himself remained loyal to the IRA's Dublin leadership, which became known as the
Official IRA
The Official Irish Republican Army or Official IRA (OIRA; ) was an Irish republican paramilitary group whose goal was to remove Northern Ireland from the United Kingdom and create a " workers' republic" encompassing all of Ireland. It emerg ...
. The split rapidly developed into a bitter rivalry between the two groups. In April 1970, McMillen was shot and wounded by Provisional IRA members in the Lower Falls area of Belfast.
In June 1970, McMillen's Official IRA had their first major confrontation with the
British Army
The British Army is the principal Army, land warfare force of the United Kingdom. the British Army comprises 73,847 regular full-time personnel, 4,127 Brigade of Gurkhas, Gurkhas, 25,742 Army Reserve (United Kingdom), volunteer reserve perso ...
, which had been deployed to Belfast in the previous year, in an incident known as the Falls Curfew. The British Army mounted an arms search in the Official IRA stronghold of the Lower Falls, where they were attacked with a grenade by Provisional IRA members. In response, the British flooded the area with troops and declared a
curfew
A curfew is an order that imposes certain regulations during specified hours. Typically, curfews order all people affected by them to remain indoors during the evening and nighttime hours. Such an order is most often issued by public authorit ...
. This led to a three-day gun battle between 80 and 90 Official IRA members led by McMillen and up to 3,000 British troops. Five civilians were killed in the fighting and about 60 wounded. In addition 35 rifles, 6 machine guns, 14 shotguns, grenades, explosives and 21,000 rounds of ammunition, all belonging to the OIRA, were seized. McMillen blamed the Provisionals for instigating the incident and then refusing to help the Officials against the British.
This ill-feeling eventually led to an all-out feud between the republican factions in Belfast in March 1971. The Provisionals attempted to kill McMillen again, as well as his second-in-command Jim Sullivan. In retaliation, McMillen had Charlie Hughes, a young PIRA member, killed. Tom Cahill, brother of leading Provisional Joe Cahill, was also shot and wounded. After these deaths, the two IRA factions in Belfast negotiated a ceasefire and directed their attention instead at the British Army.
OIRA ceasefire
When the Northern Ireland authorities introduced
internment
Internment is the imprisonment of people, commonly in large groups, without Criminal charge, charges or Indictment, intent to file charges. The term is especially used for the confinement "of enemy citizens in wartime or of terrorism suspects ...
in August 1971, McMillen fled Belfast for
Dundalk
Dundalk ( ; ) is the county town of County Louth, Ireland. The town is situated on the Castletown River, which flows into Dundalk Bay on the north-east coast of Ireland, and is halfway between Dublin and Belfast, close to and south of the bor ...
in the
Republic of Ireland
Ireland ( ), also known as the Republic of Ireland (), is a country in Northwestern Europe, north-western Europe consisting of 26 of the 32 Counties of Ireland, counties of the island of Ireland, with a population of about 5.4 million. ...
, where he remained for several months. During this time, the Official IRA carried out many attacks on the British Army and other targets in Northern Ireland. However, in April 1972, the organisation in Belfast was badly weakened by the death of their commander in the Markets area, Joe McCann. In May of that year, the Dublin leadership of the OIRA called a ceasefire, a move which McMillen supported. Nevertheless, in the year after the ceasefire, McMillen's command killed seven British soldiers in what they termed "retaliatory attacks". McMillen served on the ''Ard Chomhairle'' (leadership council) of
were unhappy with the ceasefire. In December 1974, they broke away from the Official movement, forming the Irish Republican Socialist Party and the
Irish National Liberation Army
The Irish National Liberation Army (INLA, ) is an Irish republicanism, Irish republican Socialism, socialist paramilitary group formed on 8 December 1974, during the 30-year period of conflict known as "the Troubles". The group seeks to remove ...
. Some OIRA members under McMillen's command, including the entire Divis Flats unit, defected to the new grouping. This provoked another intra-republican feud in Belfast. The feud began with arms raids on OIRA dumps and beatings of their members by the INLA. McMillen, in response was accused of drawing up a "death list" of IRSP/INLA members and even of handing information on them over to the loyalist
Ulster Volunteer Force
The Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF) is an Ulster loyalism, Ulster loyalist paramilitary group based in Northern Ireland. Formed in 1965, it first emerged in 1966. Its first leader was Gusty Spence, a former Royal Ulster Rifles soldier from North ...
.
The first killing came on 20 February 1975, when the OIRA shot dead an INLA member named Hugh Ferguson in west Belfast. A spate of shootings followed on both sides.Brian Hanley and Scott Millar, ''The Lost Revolution: The Story of the Official IRA and the Workers' Party'', Penguin Books, , p. 288
On 28 April 1975, McMillen was shot dead by INLA member Gerard Steenson, as he was shopping in a hardware shop on Spinner Street with his wife Mary. McMillen was hit in the neck and died on the scene. His killing was unauthorised and was condemned by INLA/IRSP leader
. Despite this, the OIRA tried to kill Costello on 9 May 1975 and eventually killed him two years later. McMillen's death was a major blow to the OIRA in Belfast.