Cappagh killings

The Cappagh killings occurred on 3 March 1991 when members of the Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF) Mid-Ulster Brigade opened fire at Boyle’s Bar in Cappagh, County Tyrone, killing three members of the Provisional IRA and a Catholic civilian. No one has ever been charged in connection with the attack, which was widely attributed to Billy Wright, a senior UVF figure based in Portadown.

Cappagh killings
Part of the Troubles
Location	54°32′29.40″N 6°55′27.19″W Boyle's Bar, Cappagh, County Tyrone Northern Ireland
Date	3 March 1991 10:30 pm
Attack type	Shooting
Deaths	4
Injured	1
Perpetrator	Ulster Volunteer Force

The shootings

Cappagh (2012)

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 leading member of 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, one of whom was Mark Fulton, opened fire with vz. 58 assault rifles before Quinn had even turned the engine off.^[5][3] Quinn and O'Donnell, sitting in the front seats, were killed immediately. Nugent ran from the vehicle but was shot repeatedly by one of the gunmen. This failed escape likely saved a 'petrified' Rafferty, who remained hidden in the car after being wounded in the opening salvo of fire.^[3]

Alerted by the noise, Boyle's customers barricaded the door, which prevented the gunmen from attacking Brian Arthurs. Frustrated, one of them stuck his gun barrel through a toilet window and opened fire, killing Thomas Armstrong (52), who had been sheltering inside.^[3] They 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 these claims came at a time when Wright had split from the UVF to form the rival Loyalist Volunteer Force, and the UVF therefore had a motive to discredit Wright.^[6][1][3] Special Branch believed Wright had overseen the attack, though they also suspected the idea first 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] Despite this, 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] Claims of this nature were notably popularised by an October 1991 episode of the Channel 4 programme Dispatches that drew on the evidence of Jim Sands, a former Portadown resident.^[9][10]

Providing comment for a November 1991 newspaper article, Billy Wright dismissed allegations the UVF had been assisted in this way, and alleged they were being forced to abort 'three out of every four operations' because of security force activity.^[10] Nevertheless, he boasted to an interviewer from The Guardian years later 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.^[11]

This gave 'additional oxygen to the oft-repeated charges of collusion' between security forces and militant loyalists.^[3]

Collusion accusations have often rested on the notion that the gunmen were expecting Quinn, Nugent, O'Donnell and Rafferty to visit Boyle's. In their 1997 book UVF, Jim Cusack and Henry McDonald stated the attackers were awaiting the arrival of a car driven by IRA members, which indicated they had received intelligence in advance.^[2] Similarly, Peter Taylor argued 'some degree of assistance' from the security forces was needed in order to know the movements of the car.^[6] He proposed this would most likely have come from local members of the Ulster Defence Regiment (UDR).^[6][2]

However, Rafferty admitted he and the other occupants of the car had only decided 'on the spur of the moment' to go to Boyle's.^[9][12] Consequently, the theory that the deaths of Quinn, Nugent and O'Donnell were not pre-planned but an opportunistic 'bonus' became the more widely accepted narrative.^[2] In Lost Lives, David McKittrick floated the idea that one of the hit team may have recognized the 'very distinctive appearance' of John Quinn, who was completely bald, thus distracting from the original target inside the bar.^[9] More recently, Ken Wharton described the attack as 'sectarian' and the dead IRA trio as victims of poor timing, while Jonathan Trigg expressed the view that the gunmen likely had no confirmation the men they shot were IRA members, which implied the plan was not as 'well-executed' as the UVF would later pretend.^[3][2]

At the time, police refused to confirm whether individuals questioned in the aftermath included members of the security forces. A 2020 report by the Historical Enquiries Team revealed that three serving UDR soldiers had been arrested in December 1991 and questioned for several days, but eventually released without charge.^[13]

Later events

Under pressure to avenge the Cappagh killings, the local IRA searched for a target. On the evening of the 9 April, builder Derek Ferguson (31) was shot dead at his temporary mobile home at Aughaveagh Road, Coagh. Accused by the IRA of being a UVF member, both his family and the RUC denied this, with the UVF even issuing a statement to reject the claim.^[14] It is more likely his status as an employee of Henry Brothers construction, the 'sworn enemy' of the East Tyrone Brigade for their work with the security forces, was the sole motivation behind his murder.^[15]

Brian Arthurs was arrested for possessing explosives in 1995. Sentenced to 25 years in prison, he was released in 2000 under the terms of the Good Friday Agreement. In January 2013 he pled guilty after being charged with a £250,000 mortgage fraud.^[16][17]

The IRA made at least five botched assassination attempts against Billy Wright. On 27 December 1997, INLA prisoner Christopher 'Crip' McWilliams succeeded in killing him using a smuggled gun inside Maze Prison.^[18][19]

See also

• Timeline of Ulster Volunteer Force actions