Irish Republican News · October 16, 2015

Anniversary of Grew and McCaughey

Fresh details have emerged on the deaths of two IRA men shot dead 25 years ago as republicans took part in a series of events in east Tyrone to mark the anniversary.

A Night of Reflection, organised by the 1916 Societies, was held in Galbally Community Centre last Saturday, followed by an independent republican commemoration the following day.

Dessie Grew and Martin McCaughey were part of an IRA unit ambushed and killed in County Armagh by an undercover British army team. Members of the SAS are believed to have been involved in the attack.

It is now believed that informers provided information that led to the deaths of the two Volunteers.

The two were checking a car which was to be used for an attack the next day. The car had been brought to an isolated farmyard near Loughgall, for storage.

The individual who provided the car, who was not a member of the IRA, is thought to have tipped off the Crown forces that an attack was being planned. He fled the area immediately after the ambush. Other informers may also have been involved.

The men’s families have always maintained they were victims of a deliberate “shoot to kill” policy at the time and could have been arrested.

An IRA team inspected the car three days prior to the ambush and undercover British soldiers could have made arrests at that point.

Earlier this year, the men’s families failed to have inquest verdicts quashed after a jury ruled in 2012 that the killings were justified. The inquest found that the soldiers had used reasonable force and that the IRA men’s own actions had contributed to their deaths.

The Court of Appeal will consider the matter in December.

A lawyer for the families, Fearghal Shiels of Madden and Finucane Solicitors, said they will argue that the inquest was “fundamentally flawed, chiefly due to the coroner’s refusal to allow us to examine military witnesses and their roles in other similar fatal shootings and by his failure to permit such evidence being placed before the jury”.

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