r/IrishRebelArchive

in the glory and immortal memory, of Captain Michael Michael McVerry O/c 1st Battalion, South Armagh Brigade, Provisional Irish Republican Army d. 15th November 1973 leading an attack on the British forces of occupation. Ever rejoiced in his homeland of cullyhannah ‘Greater love hath no man than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends’  

I made one of these threads about a year ago about who people thought were some of the best ASUs (M60 gang, Dogs of D-COY, Ballymurphy Battalion, etc.), so I thought this might be a fun & interesting thread as well. The four groups being the INLA, Provies, Sticks & IPLO. They can be Brigade, Battalion or COY O/C's or just a normal Volunteer. Obviously, if their names aren't well known to the public, just use an alias. They don't have to be an official O/O for a Brigade or unit either, just as long as they had a pedigree of carrying out or planning operations. Of course, these being underground guerrilla armies, it's hard to know for sure what operations they were involved in, but some volunteers' time as a rural resistance fighter or urban guerrilla are pretty well documented. And the numbering doesn't mean anything it's just the way I put it.

1. Would have to put Gerard Steenson in there as an INLA Belfast Brigade O/O (& de facto) O/C, he didn't carry out any operations as a IPLO Vol, what's called the IPLO/INLA feud was an internal feud between INLA GHQ & Army Council factions, with the Army Council faction volunteers all (or most) intending to join the IPLO after the feud & using the INLA name for legitimacy reasons. From 74 to 76, he was the most active Volunteer in the INLA during the feud with the Sticks, & instead of just targeting not well-known Vols as happens in a lot of feuds, he went after two of the Officials' biggest names, first wounding Sean Garland in Dublin & killing the OIRA's Belfast O/C, Billy McMillen. These actions won the INLA the feud, as the OIRA's objective was to wipe out the INLA as a military & political force, the INLA objectives were to survive and show they weren't to be messed with, and after Steenson carried out his attacks, the OIRA backed off & Steenson showed his potential for a leadership role by taking the initiative. He was arrested in 76 & when released in 1980, rejoined the INLA Belfast Brigade straight away and quickly became the Brigade's O/O as the State forces & Loyalists had killed a number of INLA operators in revenge for the Neave killing. But straight away, Steenson filled that void, going after mainly RUC & UDR members as well as their barracks, as soon as Ronnie Bunting died who acted as a link between the Army Council old guard & the Steenson faction, Steenson became the de facto Belfast commander, killing a UDR soldier & travelling to Armagh to plan the killing of a British soldier within two weeks of each other. Just five days later the INLA widened their targets to include Loyalists & Unionists politicians (after the Loyalist killings of Daly & Bunting), shooting and injuring a DUP member in Lurgan, also planned by Steenson was the deaths of Billy McCullough the UDA West Commander, and John McKeague the founder of the Red Hand Commando, the Ulser Unionist Party HQs were bombed, there was a sniper attack from a Markets unit on Paisley, Sammy Millar a member of the UDA's political wing the UDP was shot and injured & their was a failed attack on James Molyneaux. The years 1981 & 1982, when Steenson was de facto leader of the Belfast INLA are the only years the INLA matched the IRA for attacks carried out and 1982 being the only year they killed more RUC, UDR, Loyalists & British soldiers than the IRA in Ireland. After the top Belfast INLA operators were arrested the Supergrass period, the INLA Belfast never reached those heights again & it took a whole decade for the INLA to become somewhat as formidable as they had been in the early 80s.

2, From late 1992 to August 1994 Gino Gallagher, either the Belfast O/C or O/O or commander of a unit carried out a campaign against Loyalists, killing an Ulster Resistance member, 2 UFF, & 3 UVF members, as well as injuring 3 UDA members & one of the longest-serving UVF leaders, John Bunter Graham. The Belfast INLA in 1993 also carried out a campaign of attacks on British Army & RUC barracks and checkpoints, being involved in a gun battle with the RUC at Grosvenor Road barracks. Thanks to Gino's efforts he restored credibility back to the INLA

3. Brendan Hughes would have to be in any list, starting as a Volunteer in D-COY in 1969, then becoming the commander of D-COY in the Lower Falls after his cousin Charlie Hughes was assassinated by the Sticks, in March 1971, when he took over D-COY, which was tiny compared the OIRA, with around a dozen to 15 Volunteers, by the same time next year they surpassed the Sticks with around 80 - 100 Vols & with the Ballymurphy COY was the most active in Belfast, as Hughes himself said, between 1970 to 1974 an average day would be robbing a bank, planting bombs in the city, putting out a float & having a several hour gun battle with the British Army. There's too many operations he was involved as O/C or adjutant, but some of them were, the Battle of the Lower Falls, The Battle at Lenadoon (probably the largest battle in Bellfast), the car bombings in Belfast to accompany the first PIRA car bombings in London mainly the Old Bailey (I believe it was six or eight), of course the PR disaster that was Bloody Friday, several ambushes & floats between March to September 1972 which saw the deaths of over 30 British soldiers, about another 10 UDR & RUC, & of course probably his greatest bit of military skill, planning & operating in the attacks on the Military Reaction Force, killing five British Army agents and putting an entire British Army undercover force out of operation.

4. Rook O'Prey for the IPLO's Belfast Brigade, the protégé of Gerard Steenson when Rook was a Volunteer in the INLA in the early 1980s. He took out four Loyalists, two of them well known, & Georg Seawright was especially known. He also, in one of the IPLO's first attacks in late 86, took out a RUC Officer & the same month carried out a successful grenade & gun attack on Queen Street RUC barracks, injuring seven RUC, something the INLA had failed to do in the last 2 & a half years and wouldn't do again for over a decade. He also allegedly led the attack on the Orange Cross Cub with a UZI smg killing a long-time RHC member who just got out. On 11 August 88 he planned two attacks on British Army patrols the first on the Grosvenor Road and the other at Divis Flats, resulting in a gun battle with the British with the IPLO unit armed with a UZI & a Sanna SMG. I noticed the INLA & IPLO would always try to mount attacks between 9 to 11 August each year, I'm guessing to commemorate internment. I believe the Provos did as well, looking at a timeline of their attacks, one of their biggest operations in the 1980s was the bombing & destruction of the RUC Birches barracks on 11 August 1985. In June 1991, a hit team he led seriously injured Shankill Butcher Eddie McIlwaine, the month later he was involved in the killing of a Royal Navy member, and in August 1991 he was shot dead by the UVF which spelt the downfall of the IPLO, his comrades went on a wildcat attack spree, shooting up a number of Loyalist clubs & pubs killing 3 civilians & a UDA member in the notorious Diamond Jubilee Bar where C-Company members regularly drank & occasionally planned attacks.

5. Seamus McElwaine, one of the first attacks he carried out was a sniper attack on a patrol near Rosslea, killing an RUC officer when he was only 17/8. As far as I know, he became the youngest O/C of the 5 main Brigade areas (SouthArmagh/Down, Belfast, Derry, East Tyrone & S Fermanagh). One of his first operations as Brigade OC was an ambush in Lisnaskea on the British 14 Intelligence COY unit, in which two 14 Int COY agents were killed, and none of McElwaine's unit received any hits in exchange; it was probably the most impressive operation carried out against the unit also known as the DET. In February 1980, his unit killed 2 RUC officers & injured a British soldier in a landmine attack on the Rosslea road. In Newtownbutler the same year 2 UDR & a RUC officer were killed in gun attacks, as well as killing off-duty RUC & UDR members at Drumacabranagher & Rosslea. After his escape from the Maze, he returned to A/S, and quickly became one of the most (if not the most) wanted men in the North, for 2 and half years he slept rough around in barns & outhouses around the Monaghan/Fermanagh border. Between late 1983 to his death he was involved in in the deaths of 5 RUC officers & UDR member, as well as an attack at Enniskillen when a booby-trap bomb attached to a car killed 3 British soldiers. He also carried out three bomb attacks on RUC barracks. I can certainly see why Jim Lynagh & Padraig McKearney were keen to carry out operations with them.

6. Francis Hughes - Very Similar style to McElWaine, was O/C of the South Derry Brigade or Battalion when he was only about 17. Like Seamus, he was a full-time guerrilla, sleeping in barns, ditches, & outhouses. One of he first operations he was involved was the 1972 Dungiven landmine & gun attack in which three British soldiers were killed & 3 injured in the blast with another four injured in the sniping shots after, the year after in 1973 there was the killing of a British soldier in a land mine attack at Ballyronan, his unit killed a British soldier in a sniper attack & UDR member in car bomb attack a few months later, they also carried dozens of bomb & RPG attacks on RUC/British Army barracks & checkpoints around this period. In 1977, he was involved in the improvised Moneymore ambush, which killed 2 RUC officers, injured 2 others & made him, Dom McGlinchey & Ian Milne the most wanted men in Ireland. In 1978 near Lisnamuck Francis & another Volunteer got into a gun battle with the SAS, Hughes killed one SAS soldier & injured another before being badly injured himself & captured the next day, he was the second PIRA Volunteer to die on the 1981 Hunger Strike, he would have killed or had a part in killing at 20 British soldiers & 10 RUC/UDR as well a numerous bomb attacks on barracks & checkpoints.

7. Jim Lynagh - Famous for the large scale attacks he carried out, he always wanted a large ASU of 8 - 12 armed Vounteers with him so they would have to fight the Brits to escape. He was responsible for the deaths of a at least a dozen Brits, UDR & RUC, the Dublin SCC tried to charge for the killing of a UDR member, after he was released in 1979 & rejoined the East Tyrone Brigade it's likely he would have been involved in the land mine attack that year that killed four British soldiers, two years later in 1981, after a number of Loyalist attacks on Nationalist civilians & political figures Lynagh, with 12 other armed Volunteers burned down Tynan Abbey to the ground, killing former Stormont speaker Norman Stronge & his son who was an UUP MP, and then his small army blasted their way past the RUC corden sent to stop them. He was likely involved in the Balleygawley land mine attack in 1983 which killed four UDR members, and was the main strategist in the destruction of the Balleygawley RUC barracks in which two RUC were shot dead & three other injured, and also the attack on the Birches barracks on the 11 August 1986, the 15th anniversary of internment, of course he was killed at Loughgall in May 1987, in between the Ballygawley & Loughgall barracks attacks his unit was involved in eight other RUC barracks attacks including a car bomb attack on Coalisland barracks & five mortar attacks in East Tyrone & two in northwest Armagh in his units area.

8. Kevin McKenna, the longest PIRA CoS, really put the East Tyrone Brigade on the map; when Brendan Hughes (not Darky a different Hughes) left what was then a battalion-sized unit in early 1972, he also carried out attacks around the mid-Tyrone area. Before mid-72, the West Tyrone Brigade & especially the battalion around the Strabane-Clady area, carried out far more operations. One of the first attacks McKenna was believed to be involved in was an ambush on a joint RUC/Brit patrol near Coalisland, in which a RUC officer was killed & several others injured; just 2 Vols attacked the patrol with SMGs. He likely played a part in the September 1972 land mine attack on a British Mobile Patrol which killed 3 British soldiers at Dungannon. In March 1973 he was involved in two separate landmine attacks, one killed a British soldier on St Patricks day, near Dungannon the other killed another British soldier about 2 miles away in Ballymacilroy, around the same period he killed another British soldier in land mine attack near Clogher. It's possible he was involved in the Knock-na-Moe landmine attack which killed four British soldiers near Omagh. The most famous attack he was involved in this period was the 1974 attack on Clogher UDR Barracks which badlly damaged the barracks & killed a the first female UDR member while injuring several others as the barracks was attacked with mortars, assault rifles & RPGs. His time in charge as Brigade O/C he was responsible for at least another dozen deaths of British soldiers & RUC.

9. Joe O'Connell was by far the most successful IRA commander of an IRA ASU in England, especially in London, and he was involved in nearly all the attacks himself. He was responsible for planning 41 operations, the Guildford & Woolwich pub bombs, & the Kensington booby-trap bomb killed six British soldiers, he bombed large shops like Harrods & Selfridges, three restaurants Walton's, Scotts Oyster Bar & an Italian restaurant as well as shootig up Scotts two weeks after bombing it, and planting a large 25lb bomb in Locketts restaurant which was defused but was a popular place for MPs & members of the London bomb squad, he bombed Hiltons, & Portmans hotels and also shot up the Churchill, Carlton Tower & the Portman (again) hotels. He was also responsible for a number of attacks on Conservative & Upper Class "Gentlemen's clubs" including the Victory Services Club, Brook's Club, Army & Navy Club, Naval & Military Club, and the London Cavalry Club. He also bombed Ted Heath's flat. Ted Heath was the British PM at the time of the Falls Curfew, Internment & Bloody Sunday. His unit also shot dead the Guinness Book of Records founder, who put a £50,000 bounty on the unit's head. A number of operation his unit bombed several places in the one day, which included the London Pillar box bombs in Caledonian Road, Victoria Street, & Piccadilly Circus which in 20 people were injured, two days later 3 bombs were planted at King's Cross & Tite Street Chelsea, two of the bombs were decoys for a hidden bomb on Tite Street which timed to take out the police & bomb squad responding to the first call. He carried out 3 bomb attacks on Telephone Exchanges all the West End, which killed one person & injured four others, and the first operation in 1975 his unit planted time bombs in seven West End shops, which injured six people. To show just what a great commander he was, the unit sent to replace him carried out just eight operations between January & March 1976, with two of the Volunteers badly injuring themselves. The next prolonged England campaign didn't start until 1981, with the unit carrying out five attacks before being caught. Also, during the Balcombe Street campaign, another English unit was set up in the north, carrying out two shootings of police in Liverpool & Manchester before being caught in the summer of 1975 during a siege. https://www.liverpoolcitypolice.co.uk/memories/hope-street-seige-1975/

10. Slab Murphy - Deserves to be on any list for the operations he planned in 1979 alone. In March a UDR soldier was killed in a land mine attack at Newtownhamilton, a month later in April four RUC officers were killed by a hidden bomb set off by remote, in June two RUC officers were killed in a land mine attack near Cullaville, in July an RUC officer was killed in another remote control bomb attack, this time near Crossmaglen, of course 18 British soldiers were killed & 25 injured at Warrenpoint, in November a British soldier was killed by a booby-trap attached to a pole in Crossmaglen, & in December another British soldier was killed in a booby-trap bombing in a derelict house in Forkhill. That's 29 British forces killed in just nine months by one brigade. And the next big attack was a land mine attack at Altnaveigh in May 1981, which killed five British soldiers, that's 34 in two years. He was also the planner for the successful Derryard PVC attack in 1989, which destroyed the checkpoint & killed two British soldiers.

11. Michael Caraher - I'd have him in their for the west South Armagh sniper team he commanded, and was part of what was called "The Cullyhana Gun Club" who ambushed an undercover British force trying to kill an IRA unit, the unit was involved in multiple gun battles (including Newry Road) & attacks on RUC & Brit barracks as well as a Lynx that was knocked out of the sky by a MK15, they also used horizontal mortars which killed 2 RUC & a British soldier between 1992 to the 94 ceasefire. As well as killing seven members of the British forces (or was it eight?) with the Barrett Sniper rifle, he also injured another two, shooting the helmet off one and leaving a scar on his head, but also blowing an RUC officer's leg off in an attack at Forkhill the month after they killed a British soldier in February 1997.

Jack McCabe (John McCabe; 1916–1971), a native of Annafarney, Shercock, County Cavan, was a veteran IRA man who served as Quartermaster General on the GHQ Staff of the Provisional IRA. He was one of the movement’s principal explosives experts. A member of the republican movement from around 1932, he spent a decade in English prisons for his part in the 1939–40 bombing campaign, held at Dartmoor and Parkhurst. McCabe died on 30 December 1971, the victim of an accidental explosion at a garage in Santry, County Dublin. He was 55 years of age.

On your behalf I would like to send our sympathy and our solidarity to all those bereaved in this week of funerals and especially, because it is he whose grave we are gathered at, to the mother and father of our comrade Jim Lynagh. The Republican family was Jim's adopted family. The gap that he has left in the heart of his mother and his father has been left in the wider family which he joined as a Republican activist. You have lost a son, and we have also lost a brother. Jim's involvement in Republican activities, whether as a Sinn Féin Councillor in this area or on active service with the IRA are well known to those who need and want to know.

I would like to pay tribute to him as a human being, to agree with Pat Treanor, that we should not rob our fallen comrades of their humanity, of their humour, of their faults, of their personalities. If Jim Lynagh could speak today he would tell me to take myself off. He would tell me simply to ask you to involve yourself in the struggle which he fought in. He was a human being, a good man, a man as Pat has said, who enjoyed a laugh, who enjoyed a jar. He was motivated not by hatred but by love. Many of you here knew him much better than I did but I knew this . . that you couldn't fall out with him. So we join here Jim's own family and the wider Republican family in our collective grief and despite the sadness of the occasion I am sure that Jim Lynagh wouldn't mind if I told you that he would have enjoyed the sight of the gentlemen of the special task force trampling about in a stream at Emyvale.

On a more serious note the self proclaimed democrats in this State need to ask after the Evlynn Glenholmes debacle and after the Emyvale debacle how long will it be before their political police lower their sights. On Friday last the forces of the British oppression lowered their sights. After ten minutes of sustained firing nine corpses littered the area around Loughgall barracks. Jim Lynagh was one of those corpses. He would not have complained about the enemy action. He probably would have thought that they didn't have to shoot some of the younger volunteers but he would not have whined or complained. He knew the risks, he didn't have to go into the Six Counties.

No one intimidated him to go to Loughgall. Loughgall's barracks was heavily fortified, its occupants heavily armed and the British ambush party well concealed in great numbers with heavy automatic weapons . . . . and they had to be. Loughgall Barracks wouldn't stand without the presence of mercenaries and terrorists. Republican soldiers like Jim Lynagh, Patrick McKearney, Seamus McElwaine, Paddy Kelly and all of their comrades have proven themselves over the years in East Tyrone to be more than a match for any British mercenary on many occasions in the past. The British took no chances at Loughgall and they took no prisoners. Each volunteer was riddled scores of times and each had at least one bullet wound to the head. They were to be an example to the rest of us. Their executions were the pound of flesh demanded by the British colonial murder machine. After all wasn't Jim Lynagh only a terrorist, wasn't he only a gangster, wasn't he only a gunman. Did Jim Lynagh partition Ireland? Did Jim Lynagh establish or prop up a system of British patronage and discrimination in one part of Ireland and a system of poverty and emigration in the other part? Did Jim Lynagh or his comrades deny the right of the Irish people to national self determination. Did they support or did they bend the knee to the forces of reaction in our country? They did not. Jim Lynagh was an Irishman. He recognised no British claim to any part of Ireland. He did not stand idly by. He was no terrorist. Jim Lynagh was a freedom fighter.

There has been much comment about Loughgall and many reasons given for why it happened. Loughgall happened because of the British presence in a part of our country and Jim Lynagh and the IRA were in Loughgall last Friday night because no other organisation or institution in Ireland, with the exception of the Republican Movement, is prepared to oppose the British presence. Loughgall happened because Co. Armagh and Co. Antrim and Co. Down and Derry and Tyrone and Fermanagh are as much a part of Ireland as Monaghan or Dublin or Cork. Ireland is Ireland, we are a nation and the British Government interferes in the affairs of this nation so freedom fighters like Jim Lynagh and his comrades oppose such interference especially and most emphatically because the Irish establishment will not. Connolly had it right when he spoke of the symbols of freedom without any real freedom and Jim Lynagh understood that. Pearse had it even better when he said: 'Great is my shame. My own children have sold their mother, I am Ireland'. The ordinary people of Ireland never sold the past. The Lynaghs, the Lynches, the McKearneys, the plain people of Ireland never sold out but the rich have always betrayed the poor.

A few short months ago the plain people of the State elected a Fianna Fáil Government, of sorts. Their leader made many brave noises about a British withdrawal being a prerequisite for peace in this land. He described the Six County State as an unviable social and economic unit. He chose Bowdenstown — the shame of it — to denounce British policy and to denounce Fitzgerald's collusion in that policy and to denounce the actions of British Crown forces. That was when he was looking for votes.

Last year the great Kerry football team beat a great Tyrone team. We all came together, Irish men and women of no political allegiance and of some political allegiance. Many of the young volunteers from Tyrone who were murdered at Loughgall were at that game. Everyone shared a great day together and Tyrone were cheered from Ballycastle to Ballybunion. Now Tyrone is mourning. Do the people of this State, the nationalist people of this State, mourn with the people of Tyrone or, like Brian Lenihan, do they stand with the British terrorist? Does Charles Haughey with his U-turns on the Single European Act and the Hillsborough Treaty or his Fine Gael budget? Does he represent Irish nationalists? He doesn't. He has broken every single promise he ever made. The English Government understands Charles Haughey and Brian Lenihan as it understood Fitzgerald and his gang. It has always understood the shoneen class . . . it bought them off . . . but the English Government does not understand the plain people of Ireland. It does not understand Jim Lynagh. It thinks it can defeat them. It will never defeat them. Loughgall will become a tombstone to British policy in Ireland. Jim Lynagh died of injustice. All the people of this country, regardless of their station, regardless of their status, have a duty to speak out against injustice. Jim Lynagh didn't want to die. He wanted to live in peace with his fellow citizens in an independent and peaceful Ireland. He was forced to take up arms because he would not let us, the people of the North, down and we, like him, we want peace. We want peace but peace isn't just an absence of war. Peace is justice. Peace is equality, peace is national self-determination, peace is an end to Partition and peace is British withdrawal. That's what Jim Lynagh fought for.

Jim Lynagh set us an example. His parents and parents of the other Volunteers who died are here in the crowd. His parents and the families of the other Volunteers have inspired us. We will never betray them.