I have developed a new project to commemorate the thousands of lives lost during the conflict in Ireland and Britain from 1966 to the present day.

Paper Trail’s Memorial Map will connect the loss of each life to a place on an interactive map. Behind each marker is a human being – a parent, a child, a partner, a friend, a neighbour - and grieving loved ones left behind.

Each place represents a home, a road, a parish, a town and a community impacted by violence. It helps us visualize how the conflict has damaged tens of thousands of lives across time and space.

Paper Trail’s Memorial Map is developed with the kind support of the Irish American Unity Conference and it would not have been possible without the great scholarship that preceded it.

These include Lost Lives, Malcolm Sutton’s Index of Deaths, and Conflict Archive on the Internet (CAIN). It also features extensive information from the British Ministry of Defence.

My own research will fill in the rest.

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Anniversaries

Over the next year, I will continue to locate and correct records manually for anniversaries. Families and friends can also contact me directly from the Memorial Map if they wish to suggest an amendment for the record of their loved one.

So, it’s very much a commemorative work-in-progress that I am fulfilling in my spare time for the charity, but it is one that has already taken much effort which I have found useful to my own research.

As well as developing the website and ensuring it is easy to navigate for visitors and myself, I collated 4,483 victims from the various sources. This list includes more than 700 more victims from the British Armed Forces whose deaths were recorded as “Other Causes” and not “Hostile Actions”. These additional victims include deaths by the likes of road traffic accident, negligent discharge, and suicide during Britain’s Operation Banner. The MOD included scant information to these victims, so I will be doing my own archival research to locate the place where they died or were mortally wounded.

Genesis of Paper Trail’s Memorial Map

I also developed Paper Trail’s Memorial Map to help me with my own investigations, just like my British Army Tracker Tool Northern Ireland (BATT NI). When I open a case file for a family member, I include a photograph of the victim and detail a little about them to remind myself that there is a human face and story behind each terrible incident. I also include any maps from the period of their death and prefer to visit the location so I can get a sense of the area, including its topography. The locations of other violent deaths in the area related to the conflict may also be important to individual investigations, so I would compile a map of those too.

Paper Trail’s Memorial Map evolved from this work and like BATT NI, I wanted to share it with victims and survivors and my colleagues in the other charities. As well as commemorating the dead, it may also be a useful tool for researchers. I have much work to do, but already the feedback from visitors has been very encouraging.

On This Day Feature

As well as exploring the interactive Memorial Map by location, visitors can search for victims by their name and the date of their death. The new web app also includes an "On This Day" feature that commemorates victims’ anniversaries as they occur.

Anniversaries have always been a feature of my work as I know how important they are as markers for families, including my own. Therefore, I am using anniversaries over the next year to focus my work with Memorial Map.

Visual Warning

Paper Trail’s Memorial Map helps us visualize how the conflict not only resulted in the death of nearly 4,500, but also how it damaged tens of thousands of lives across a small area and many decades. To the family homes across generations wrecked by the conflict, we can add friends, witnesses, and emergency responders.

The project stands too as a visual warning that we cannot be complacent about peace either many lives were lost after the signing of the Good Friday/Belfast Agreement in 1998. These latest victims include my talented pal, Lyra McKee, killed in Fanad Drive, Creggan, Derry, on 18th April, 2019.

Invite

If you lost a loved one during the conflict, review the record that commemorates them and contact me from the Memorial Map if you would like me to amend it. I will manually correct the entry myself. Otherwise, I aim to verify each record in turn on their anniversaries.

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The charity’s British Army Tracker Tool Northern Ireland: BATT NI is a time-saving search facility that allows researchers to discover which regular British Army units were stationed near a given location and time during the conflict. This can save hours of research trying to work that out via desktop research and allows researchers to target which British Army regimental archives to access.

Op Banner

Operation Banner, the British Armed Forces’ operation in Northern Ireland, lasted from 1969 to 2007 and involved over 300,000 soldiers, making it the longest continuous military campaign in British Army history. Despite its scale and impact, detailed, searchable records of which units were present in specific areas at precise times have remained difficult to access—until now.

Paper Trail’s BATT NI bridges this critical information gap. Users can search British Army deployments by location (area name, sub-area, or BT postcode) and by date, and identify which regiments were present at any given time. The free tool also allows users to look up all tours of duty for a specific regiment. This functionality is powered by a specialized dataset compiled by Paper Trail and is designed to make difficult-to-access archival information easy to navigate.

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The tool is designed to serve a wide range of crucial needs:

* **For victims and survivors:** BATT NI provides a direct means to discover which British Army units were resident in a specific area at a specific time, potentially answering long-held questions about past events, including those that directly impacted them. It is a step towards reclaiming the historical narrative and accessing information that has been hidden for decades.

* **For victims’ charities and legal researchers:** BATT NI is a powerful, time-saving reference for charity organizations and legal teams supporting victims and survivors of the conflict. By quickly identifying which military units were in/near a location at a given period, researchers can streamline their work, pinpointing evidence and witnesses more efficiently—a process that previously required painstaking manual effort.

* **For academic researchers and historians:** The tool offers a systematic way to analyse troop movements and deployments over the 38 years of Operation Banner. It facilitates large-scale historical analysis, helping scholars to map military presence against the socio-political landscape of Northern Ireland.

* **For investigative journalists:** The tool provides a starting point for data-driven investigations, enabling journalists to cross-reference deployment data with other records and uncover new leads. It helps to hold power to account by making a key piece of the historical puzzle searchable and verifiable.

BACKSTORY

I am a lone worker in Paper Trail, and I am investigating terrible cases involving around 250 murders and 500 survivors who were physically injured.

Legacy archive research is a key component of my work, but it is costly and time-consuming, so I have to innovate to save time and money for the charity. I developed BATT NI to save precious time and to pinpoint which specific British Army records to access when investigating every violent incident, regardless of the background of the perpetrator or victim.

A recent example of the importance of these searches includes discovering the involvement of the King’s Regiment in several unclaimed murders of unarmed civilians during its 4-month tour of West Belfast in the summer of 1972. These murders included schoolgirls, teenage boys, family men, and the local priest.

Paper Trail is sharing BATT NI online and free of charge, as it is Paper Trail’s mission to discover and collate historic, conflict-related information buried in official archives and to ensure it reaches the families who need it most.

BATT NI democratizes access to this key part of the historical record. By empowering victims and survivors to search and locate British Army deployments, we are putting crucial information directly into the hands of those who need it most, helping them in their own campaigns for truth, justice, and acknowledgment.

Five unarmed innocents were killed by the resident British Army battalion that night. The dead included a family man, the local priest and three teenagers, one of whom was a schoolgirl. 2 other local residents were shot and badly injured as they came to the aid of their neighbours.

Paper Trail investigated these murders and secured highly secret Company, Battalion,Brigade and Headquarters Northern Ireland files after years of information battles and public interest tests. Armed with these, Paper Trail was able to connect a number of other murders that either lay unclaimed or were blamed on both Loyalist and Republican paramilitary groups.

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Paper Trail proved instead that the King’s Regiment perpetrated these murders and it left a trail of human devastation in its wake in West Belfast at the end of its 4-month tour in the terrible summer of ’72. This Springhill-Westrock Massacre was no isolated King’s Regiment atrocity and cover-up, but one of a number. That is why Paper Trail and the families have since called them: The Killer Kings Regiment.

It described the discovery of three Scottish soldiers, murdered on a lonely brae overlooking the city of Belfast.

The victims were Fusilier John McCaig (17), his brother, Fusilier Joseph McCaig (18), and their friend, Fusilier Dougald McCaughey (23) of the First Battalion Royal Highland Fusiliers (RHF), stationed in Belfast for only a month.

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Children discovered their bodies at White Brae, Ligoniel, and the murders sent shockwaves through Britain and Northern Ireland. Their cold-blooded execution by members of the Irish Republican Army helped radicalize a generation of Loyalists and usher in a darker, more unforgiving era of violence.

Another grim turning point in the conflict.

Today, new evidence from secret military files discovered by the charity Paper Trail sheds light on the panic, the investigation, and the intelligence failures that followed.

I also pinpoint a key British military file in the National Archives, London, that the Ministry of Defence wanted to remain sealed until 2056, but could provide the families with critical evidence for their ongoing campaign for truth.

In July 1972, Anthony Davidson was brutally murdered at his doorstep in West Belfast. His killer was injured, and he dropped the murder weapon – a .45 calibre revolver – which was recovered by the British Army.

Secret files reveal a shocking truth: the killer’s commander, Andy Tyrie, the soon-to-be Supreme Commander of the Ulster Defence Association (UDA), was a British agent who openly discussed murders, including Anthony’s, with British Army contacts.

Days after Anthony’s murder, Tyrie brazenly asked the British Army for the return of that very .45 calibre revolver. He boasted that his gang was responsible, even naming his second-in-command and the injured killer, who was being treated in a hospital bed close to Anthony’s.

Despite knowing all this crucial evidence, the British Armed Forces did not prosecute Tyrie or the killers he named. This is the anatomy of collusion, where the state knew everything, yet let murder go unpunished.

📖 Read the archives here »

Their aims? To undermine their own Unionist government, stoke sectarian violence, and pave the way for the UVF’s preferred electoral candidates, hardline holy men, Reverends Ian Paisley and William Beattie.

And they succeeded.

📖 Read: The ‘Wave’ of UVF False Flag Bomb Attacks that Blew Paisley INTO Office

▶️ Follow the Paper Trail.

📖 Read more: Did William Craig Fake his own Assassination Attempt?

📚 Become an insider on Substack

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While Irish Catholic civilians were being murdered by the British Army on the streets of Belfast and hundreds of Irish men kidnapped from their families and interned without trial, this highly influential cleric in Maynooth was secretly collaborating with British spies. The Monsignor would later become Bishop of Limerick, but his toxic legacy includes far more than just his connection to British intelligence.

July 9, 1972: British soldiers from 1^st Battalion Kings Regiment killed three teenagers including a young girl, a family man, and a local priest in the Springhill-Westrock Massacre - all Irish Catholics, all unarmed. July 10, 1972: 1 Kings released a 17-year-old Loyalist gunman to UDA paramilitary leader, Andy Tyrie, even though they had caught this teenager in the middle of a gun battle and threatening to murder Irish Catholics with an illegal weapon. Two days, one British Army regiment, two estates on either side of one road; two completely different standards of justice.

The secret British Army files that Paper Trail discovered casts a cold light on this casual collusion between the British Army and Loyalist paramilitaries. They also reveal the shocking extent of this double standard. While Irish families buried their dead, Loyalist paramilitaries walked free with British Army approval.

The Springhill-Westrock Massacre

The secret British military logs from July 9, 1972, show that 1 Kings killed the 3 unarmed teenagers, a family man and the local parish priest during the Springhill-Westrock Massacre. Another 2 unarmed locals were shot and injured. The British Ministry of Defence had tried to bury which regiment was guilty of the murders for decades.

All of the victims were Irish Catholics.

One of the murdered teenagers was 13-year-old girl called Margaret Gargan. Also killed were: John David McCafferty (15), Dougal (16), Patrick Butler (39) and Father Noel Fitzpatrick (40).

The killings began with a British Army attack on two vehicles that had stopped on the street. Local witnesses testify that John Dougal tried to go to the aid of the injured of one of these vehicles when he was shot.

John was my grandmother’s nephew.

Father Fitzpatrick and Patrick Butler were alleged to have been felled by the same bullet as they prepared to go to the aid of the injured. Father Fitzpatrick had just run from the church in his priestly garb and was waving a white handkerchief as a sign that he was coming out and he was no threat to the British Army.

David McCafferty was killed when he tried to drag Father Fitzpatrick's body to safety.

Margaret Gargan was killed by a British Army sniper when she was talking with her friends a couple of hundred yards away.

John Dougal and David McCafferty were later claimed as Fianna - Republican youth members of the Provisional and Official Irish Republican Army respectively.

Civilian witnesses testify that none of the victims were armed and later police tests found no trace of lead residue on their bodies.

The British Army alleged they were under attack and returned fire. They then alleged the victims were caught in crossfire during an intense gun battle with the IRA (again disputed by the civilian witnesses). The British Army then alleged Loyalists may have shot the victims before admitting at the original inquest that their soldiers injured and killed the victims. This inquest was a whitewash.

The families fought with great dignity for truth and justice over the last two generations before securing a new inquest.

Double Standards of Justice

The night after the massacre on 10^th July 1972, across the road and a few hundred metres away in Springmartin, 1 Kings arrested a Loyalist gunman during an interfactional shooting battle.

His name and address in redacted but we can see that 1 Kings reported that they arrested him carrying an unlicensed 9mm pistol and he had 11 rounds in a holster.

A few hours later, the Commanding Officer of 1 Kings reported to his 39 Brigade Headquarters:

"Picked up boy (17) with a weapon. UDA [Ulster Defence Association] Commander is taking boy away, saying they [UDA] will sort him out. Security Forces have the weapon. RUC and Company Commander [1 Kings] agree best [course of] action is to let boy go. If detained by Security Forces, there will be a major incident, and may foul up relations for 12 July."

The 12^th July, of course, was the 12^th July Orange parades.

0222 hours (2:22 am), 11th July 1972

The Commanding Officer insisted:

“that the boy is fully photographed and documented, and fully questioned then handed over to RUC. Boy very frightened. [NAME REDACTED] being told that this is the last chance..."

The redacted name there, I believe, was the name of UDA leader Andy Tyrie who then gave assurance to the CO of 1 Kings. The CO in turn said he would phone HQ the following morning regarding these assurances.

Secret British military intelligence documents from May 1972 record that the Company Commander of A Company Highfield/Springmartin was Andy Tyrie who would subsequently become nominal leader of the UDA from 1973 to 1988. Despite murdering hundreds of civilians, the British state did not proscribe the UDA until August 1992. Tyrie is also mentioned elsewhere in Julys logs.

39 Brigade reported then to Headquarters Northern Ireland:

"Ref [Reference] Protestant Gunman. 17 year old boy Stupid Boy - UDA Company Commander request[ed] to deal with it - Did not have firearms certificate. Being released to the UDA on the advice of the RUC."

A few minutes later, he then reported:

"Documentation and photos done. Boy will now be released by British Military on [the] advice of RUC."

Andy Tyrie UDA

The British State possessed detailed knowledge of Tyrie's position and influence within Loyalist paramilitarism months before the events of July 1972. The intelligence files from then confirm that British forces maintained comprehensive surveillance of UDA command structures while simultaneously facilitating their operations through direct collaboration.

On July 10, 1972, the 1st Battalion Kings Regiment arrested a 17-year-old Loyalist gunman in the Springmartin Road area of West Belfast. The teenager carried a 9mm pistol and eleven rounds of ammunition when British Army patrols apprehended him during intense interfactional fighting. Unlike the unarmed 13 year old Catholic girl 1 Kings murdered twenty-four hours earlier, this armed 17 year old Protestant posed a genuine threat to everyone including the British armed forces through possession of illegal weapons and ammunition.

The Commanding Officer of 1 Kings made the shocking decision to bypass standard arrest procedures and engage in contact with the UDA directly. Instead of processing the gunman through normal military and police channels, the officer reported to 39 Brigade Headquarters that the UDA commander was taking the boy away, stating that they would "sort him out." This represents direct collaboration between British forces and paramilitary organizations operating in Protestant areas.

When it handed the loyalist gunman over, The British State effectively outsourced law enforcement to a known paramilitary leader, demonstrating the casual nature of collusion between British armed forces and Loyalist armed organizations. The British authorities in these files recognized UDA command structures while simultaneously enabling their continued operations through official cooperation.

39 Brigade reported to British Army Headquarters Northern Ireland about the incident, referring to the gunman as a "Protestant Gunman" and noting that the UDA Company Commander requested to deal with the situation. The report stated that the boy was being released to the UDA on RUC advice, highlighting collaborative decision-making processes that prioritized Loyalist paramilitary interests over law enforcement. These communications document systematic preferential treatment afforded to armed Protestant organizations – in the UDA’s case, one that remained legal until 1992.

Tyrie's subsequent rise to become nominal leader of the UDA from 1973 to 1988 occurred despite British intelligence's documented knowledge of his paramilitary activities. The British State promoted a known paramilitary commander through deliberate inaction, allowing him to coordinate decades of civilian murders while maintaining official protection. This trajectory demonstrates how individual acts of collusion enabled long-term violence against the Catholic community.

This discrimination was systemic. In 1972 under British Armed Forces Arrest Policy, Protestants were specifically exempted from Interim Custody Orders – internment without trial. This discriminatory approach to arrests meant that the British State interned Irish Catholics alone. The policy revealed institutional bias that in effect protected Loyalist paramilitaries while subjecting the Irish community to detention without charge and violence.

This single incident on July 10 exemplifies the systematic protection afforded to Loyalist paramilitaries while Catholics faced immediate lethal force. The contrast between murdering unarmed Catholics and releasing an armed Protestant gunman reveals the British State's deliberate choice to enable Loyalist violence. These declassified documents prove that it was policy designed to maintain sectarian divisions while denying official responsibility for the consequences.

Paper Trail has also discovered further examples of collusion between the British military, RUC and Loyalists in these files directly referencing Tyrie’s A Company UDA and a number of unsolved murders.

In one British military intelligence report, a loyalist leader – name redacted – openly discussed a number of murders of Irish Catholics.

The British intelligence officer reported that:

“The UDA, and in particular in this area A and B Coys, seem to have been temporarily appeased by the positive approach adopted by the Security Forces… However one or two incidents underline their increasing preparedness to use weapons to kill Catholics.”

The report named a number of victims whose names I will not record here and goes on to say that the named Loyalist paramilitary leader:

“…made no secret of the fact that his Company had been responsible.”

In one terrible murder, one of the perpetrators was himself shot and dropped a gun at the scene.

The intelligence summary recorded:

“His second in command NAMED owned the car which was used; The NAMED Paramilitary leader asked for .45 revolver back which had been lost during the incident, and a member of A Company NAME and ADDRESS provided. The Named Victim was going to be detained for interrogation but that something had gone wrong and shots were exchanged.”

I have gone back to the National Archives in London to find out definitively whether it was Tyrie now he is deceased. But here we have it in black and white this named Loyalist leader discussed murders with British military, told them who was involved and asked for the gun back.

As stark and as open an admission that I have ever read in secret files.

Paper Trail has researched this particular murder for a number of years and found archival information proving that the British Army and the RUC knew who committed this murder within hours anyway and had connected the injured perpetrator in hospital to the murder.

In fact, the RUC had discovered .45 bullets on this person whilst he was in hospital but did not arrest him for the murder. He was never prosecuted for any paramilitary activity. When he was brought before the courts during the Loyalist supergrass trials in the early 80s, the RUC actually told the judge that the killer had not been involved in anything since 1972 and he got off scot-free. The RUC did not tell the judge that he had committed a murder in 1972.

Nobody was prosecuted for this murder and I do not know whether the murder gun was handed back to the UDA by the British armed forces just as others had been in other terrible incidents.

Paper Trail has provided all of this evidence to the family of the murdered victim and when I completed the report, I was informed that the killer is still alive.

Conclusion

The contrast between July 9 and July 10, 1972, reveals the British State's deliberate choice to protect Loyalist paramilitaries while waging war on the Catholic community. These declassified documents prove that collusion was not accidental but a systemic policy, designed to enable organized Loyalist violence while denying its existence.

Related

Read the archives in this article: Casual Collusion and a Tale of Two City Estates

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British Military Intelligence identified Tyrie as “A Company Commander” by May 1972 at least.

Tyrie then became the self-styled “Supreme Commander” of the UDA from 1973, a position he held for 15 years.

Under his leadership, the UDA evolved from neighbourhood defensive committees into a coordinated paramilitary force responsible for over 400 sectarian murders, the majority targeting randon Catholic civilians “in the wrong at the wrong time”.

The British state was aware of his leadership role and the UDA's activities but did not ban the organization until 1992.

In these files from the darkest days of the conflict, Tyrie was in close contact with the British Army, even as his UDA units were involved in kidnapping, torture, and murder. He operated with virtual impunity until he left the UDA in 1988.

He was buried today, 22nd May 2025, and was remembered as a peacemaker and bridge-builder.

It is important too we remember the trail of devastation he and his organistion left in their wake.

It is also important that we acknowledge that Andy Tyrie and the UDA were allowed to operate legally by the British state, at best tolerated, and at worst actively armed and directed by it.

The British state would not support a paramilitary group to murder hundreds of its citizens in Birmingham or Bristol, but it helped Tyrie’s UDA do just that in Belfast.

The Sanitized Briefing: What Heath Was Told

Paper Trail has uncovered an historical document from Defence Secretary Lord Carrington to Prime Minister Edward Heath. It represents a rare glimpse into the carefully constructed official narrative presented at the highest levels of government about the MRF's operations in Northern Ireland.

The date of the briefing is stark. It arrived on the Prime Minister's desk during a period of intense scrutiny for the MRF, following mounting casualties and operational failures that threatened to expose the unit's true nature. It was drafted in the aftermath of the Four Square Laundry attack and the execution and secret burial of Seamus Wright and Kevin McKee – members of the Irish Republican Army who were turned and run as agents by the MRF. The remains of these victims would not be recovered until 2015. Yet these catastrophic failures receive no mention in the briefing to Heath.

The document portrays the MRF's purpose as benign: gathering intelligence in "hard areas," forestalling terrorist activities, and carrying out arrests. This crafted description deliberately excludes any reference to the MRF's documented involvement in the murder and maiming of civilians, presenting instead a version of events dramatically at odds with the unit's actual activities on the streets of Belfast.

When addressing operational problems, the minute refers only to "mistakes" requiring reorganization. These "mistakes" are never defined as the loss of innocent civilian lives or violations of law, but rather measured by the yardstick of "bad publicity" that might damage state interests. This choice of terminology reflects a moral calculation where public relations took precedence over human rights violations committed by state forces.

The minute's true purpose becomes clear in its conclusion: Lord Carrington was seeking Heath's approval to use the Special Air Service (SAS) Regiment to train a new Special Reconnaissance Unit that would evolve from the MRF. This wasn't a disbanding of a problematic unit due to ethical concerns, but a calculated rebranding exercise. The British state had decided not to address the MRF's fundamental lawlessness and deliberate murder of civilians, but instead to reform it into a more effective covert operation with elite training.

Attached to the minute was a comprehensive note providing historical context about the MRF's evolution from the "Bomb Squad." Yet this document strategically omits details of the unit's most serious offenses. The selective presentation of information suggests a pattern of institutional deception operating at the highest levels of government, where even the Prime Minister received a version of events carefully curated to secure continued support for covert operations.

The minute's emphasis on concealing the SAS involvement highlights the covert nature of the entire enterprise. This wasn't merely operational security; it was part of a broader pattern of deniability that allowed the British government to maintain public legitimacy while operating a unit engaged in activities that would shock the public conscience if revealed at the time, never mind to today.

The document's focus on "bad publicity" rather than human life or legal or ethical considerations reveals a government more concerned with managing public perception than addressing fundamental violations of law and human rights. This was not an aberration but a calculated strategy: the rebirth of the MRF as the SRU would allow these operations to continue under new management and rules, with improved training to ensure fewer "mistakes" that might generate unwelcome attention.

Most disturbing is the timing of this communication. It arrived on Heath's desk in the month following the Four Square Laundry killing of MRF operative Sapper Ted Stuart and the disappearance of Wright and McKee – a catastrophic intelligence failure that cost British Army lives and exposed agents to extreme danger. Yet the minute presents these events in the most sanitized terms possible.

The Disappeared: The Human Cost of Intelligence Failures

Behind the sanitized language of "operational mistakes" lay human tragedy - men who paid the ultimate price for intelligence operations that continued long after they were compromised.

Secret Ministry of Defence files which Paper Trail has uncovered over the year expose the stark reality behind the Four Square Laundry operation, a surveillance operation that became the MRF's reported intelligence crown jewel in Belfast. Through this seemingly innocuous dry cleaning business, British military intelligence conducted extensive surveillance in working class estates, testing clothing for explosive residue and photographing suspected individuals in predominantly Irish Catholic areas. The operation was touted in a Situation Report as responsible for "over 30% of the arrests of Provisional IRA officers in the Andersonstown area" - its value measured in intelligence yield rather than the safety of those who gathered it.

Files Paper Trail discovered revealed the recruitment of IRA members Seamus Wright and Kevin McKee as agents - or "Freds" as they were known within military circles. These men operated in the shadows between two worlds, their lives constantly at risk. Wright's relationship with British forces was particularly fraught. Military records coldly state the British Armed Forces paid him just £285 before he was "discharged as unsatisfactory" and relocated to Birmingham, England, on March 29, 1972 - a clinical description of a decision that would prove fatal.

The danger escalated dramatically when McKee "escaped from protective custody" on September 6, 1972. This event should have triggered an immediate security protocol, shutting down all operations connected to the compromised agent. Instead, British intelligence continued the Four Square Laundry operation for an additional four weeks - a catastrophic decision for the families of the victims. The MoD's own internal documents admit McKee was "almost certainly responsible for 'blowing' the Laundry operation to the IRA" and may have been "personally involved in the murder of Sapper Stuart on 2nd October [1972]."

The human cost of this security breach was immediate and devastating. Sapper Ted Stuart, a British soldier from Northern Ireland working as a driver for the Four Square Laundry van, was ambushed and killed by IRA operatives in West Belfast. Stuart became the unwitting victim of his own command's failure to act on intelligence that their operation had been compromised. His death represents not merely an operational casualty but evidence of reckless endangerment by British military leadership who knowingly maintained a surveillance operation they should have known had been exposed.

Just two days after Sapper Stuart's killing, high-level officials from the Ministry of Defence and Northern Ireland Office met with representatives from the Prime Minister's Office. Rather than addressing the intelligence failure that led to Stuart's death, they focused on managing public perception. The meeting concluded that "it now seems best to play down this aspect of security force activities as much as possible" - a statement revealing that preserving operational secrecy took precedence over acknowledging responsibility for the loss of their own personnel.

The fate of Wright and McKee further demonstrates the expendability of human life in this shadow war. The IRA kidnapped both men, interrogated them, and executed them. Their bodies were disappeared, their families denied even the basic dignity of a proper burial until 2015.

The MRF's catastrophic mismanagement left these agents exposed to lethal reprisal with no protection, despite clear warning signs that their cover had been compromised.

Perhaps most telling is what remained absent from the official minute provided to Prime Minister Heath. The document contained no mention of warning signs ignored, no acknowledgment of the ethical implications of continuing operations known to be compromised, and no acceptance of responsibility for the deaths that resulted from these decisions. Instead, it presented these events in the most sanitized terms possible - "mistakes" requiring reorganization rather than lives needlessly sacrificed through negligence.

The British government's handling of this affair was defined not by accountability but by concealment. The official response focused entirely on managing potential "bad publicity" rather than addressing the fundamental failures that left their own agents and soldiers vulnerable to attack. The high-level meeting following Stuart's killing demonstrates this priority explicitly, with officials deciding to "play down" these activities rather than investigate how they led to fatal consequences.

Deadly Organizational Failures

Behind the carefully managed narrative of "mistakes" presented to Heath lay an even more disturbing reality – the MRF allegedly operated with virtually no administrative framework whatsoever. The confidential note to the Prime Minister employed bureaucratic euphemisms about "inexperienced and changing personnel" and "lack of command and control," language that deliberately obscured a basic truth: this wasn't merely an intelligence unit making occasional errors, but a lethal operation fundamentally lacking the most basic organizational structures required for legitimate military functions.

The absence of operational oversight wasn't incidental – it was systemic. In 2015, Paper Trail uncovered evidence regarding Ranger Louis Hammond, another British soldier working with the MRF throughout 1972, revealing that no formal policies existed whatsoever for the "recruitment, handling and disposal of turned terrorists and informers." This administrative vacuum meant agents operated in an environment where their safety depended entirely on improvised procedures created by whoever happened to be in charge during the tour.

Internal correspondence laid bare the extent of this negligence. The Under Secretary of State for the Army made the startling admission that "no policy on the 'A' [Administration] Aspects of such cases had been thought out when Ranger Hammond was first employed as an agent in May, 1972." This wasn't a minor bureaucratic oversight – it represented a fundamental failure to establish the most basic protections for individuals operating in extraordinarily dangerous circumstances. For agents infiltrating paramilitary organizations, this administrative void proved deadly.

The administrative chaos extended beyond paperwork and created a perfect storm of operational vulnerability. Without established protocols for agent protection, individuals working as informants became disposable assets rather than personnel entitled to institutional safeguards. The absence of proper vetting procedures, extraction plans, and support mechanisms left these agents catastrophically exposed to discovery and reprisal. When the intelligence structure itself lacks coherent design, the protection of those within it becomes impossible.

The case of Seamus Wright demonstrates how these structural deficiencies directly contributed to fatal outcomes. After receiving a mere £285 for his services, he was abruptly "discharged as unsatisfactory" without adequate aftercare or protection – a decision stemming directly from the absence of established protocols for handling agents whose utility had ended. The bureaucratic machine that recruited him had no mechanisms in place to ensure his ongoing safety once his direct value diminished.

The same administrative negligence extended to teenager Kevin McKee, who participated in intelligence operations without sufficient security protocols to protect his identity or provide contingencies if his cover was compromised. When he "escaped from protective custody," the MRF lacked standard operating procedures to immediately halt compromised operations. The continued use of the Four Square Laundry operation after McKee's departure represented not just a tactical error but a structural failure – there were no administrative checkpoints requiring reassessment when security breaches occurred.

Even if the MRF's intelligence operations produced significant results – the Four Square Laundry operation was credited with facilitating numerous arrests of IRA officers in nationalist areas – the unit continued operating with a dangerous absence of administrative guardrails. Intelligence gathering became an end that justified all means, including the exposure of their own personnel to preventable dangers. Without accountability structures, the pursuit of information overrode all other considerations, including the safety of those gathering it.

The British Army's institutional response to these failures further highlights the systemic nature of the problem. Only after the deaths of Sapper Stuart, Wright, McKee and others did General Sir Cecil Blacker, the Adjutant General of the British Army, finally move to create new policies for agent handling. This reactive approach demonstrates how the MRF allegedly operated outside normal chains of command – basic protections that would have been standard in properly constituted military units had to be created from scratch after lives were already lost.

These weren't isolated incidents of negligence, but evidence of an intentional decision to maintain plausible deniability. A unit without proper documentation, procedures, or oversight is a unit whose actions cannot be properly scrutinized, investigated, or held accountable. The absence of administrative structure served as a feature rather than a bug – creating a shadow operation whose activities could be easily disavowed by higher authorities when necessary.

That cover-up continues to this day.

Just ylast week the defence team of 4 former members of the MRF who have finally been taken to court for the murder and attempted murder of civilians in 1972 claimed that the defendants were unfit to stand trial. The state is not only protecting its killers but also its commanders.

Justice drops slow in the north of Ireland if at all.

Looks can be deceiving though.

The Information Policy Report from the Republic of Ireland dated 23rd September 1971 (FCO 2/703) was prepared by Information Officer, PJC Evans, for DN Brinson, working in the Guidance and Information Policy Department of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO). Evans’s report briefly outlines the objectives and methods of the small and seemingly stretched Information Section a few weeks after internment.

Nevertheless, it was sent with a “Secret Annex on the IRD activity” which jumped out at me as it highlighted that the post was run by the Information Research Department (IRD).

Covert British Propagandists

The IRD was a covert propaganda unit that was set up within the FCO primarily to combat the communist threat during the Cold War. It was also brought into Northern Ireland by British Prime Minister, Edward Heath, in the early 70s to be used against the IRA.

The IRD features in my book, The McGurk’s Bar Bombing: Collusion, Cover-Up and a Campaign for Truth, due to the covert management of information and dissemination of black propaganda in the aftermath of the atrocity and murder of my grandmother, Kathleen Irvine.

Here the IRD helped manage British information policy and reorganise the information activity of agencies including Headquarters Northern Ireland, the office of the UK Representative and the RUC Information Office.

Whilst researching my book, I accessed a file which proved that the IRD appointed Clifford Hill and Hugh Mooney to the office of Howard Smith, the UK Representative at Stormont who was Whitehall’s man on the ground in Northern Ireland. Hugh Mooney liaised closely with the British Army’s top-secret Information Policy Unit which was run by expert propagandist Colonel Maurice Tugwell and reported directly to the General Officer Commanding (GOC).

Mooney’s post of Information Adviser to the GOC was a “cover appointment for the representative of the Information Research Department”. In Stormont circles, Hill was simply known as “Cliff the Spy”.

Evans notes that his Dublin section was distributing “a variety of IRD written material on aspects of world Communism” to contacts including the Irish Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA). The DFA, Evans says, though, was “small and overworked” and “scarcely able to digest IRD material” never mind put it to any propaganda use. These were evidently overt channels of dissemination but Evans also relays that information was being “passed in confidence to one or two trusted local journalists” who wrote about Communist affairs. He also records that the:

“second category of IRD activity at this post concerns the ‘indoctrination’ – if that is not too strong a word – of journalist contacts writing on Anglo/Irish affairs”

It is newsworthy and quite current to find record of a state – and a foreign state at that – seeking to exert control over information that is placed in the Irish public domain via so-called trusted media. Indeed, Evans writes that the stated “aim is to induce, as we frequently can, reliable journalist contacts to publish articles in their own names which contains substantial amounts of information provided by the Information Officer”.

Nevertheless, such journalistic contacts are the stock and trade of the Information Officer’s job so I anticipated such IRD activities as these, no matter how shocking it may be to contemplate that indigenous media would be so open to foreign propaganda. Furthermore, these are unnamed channels for the dissemination of material manufactured by the British IRD.

There is a named source within this secret annex, though, and he was a man in a position of great spiritual and civic influence…

The infamous Monsignor Jeremiah Newman.

🎧 Listen: Britain’s Man in Maynooth

Read more in my book Trope: Essays and Articles. All proceeds from the sale of the book go to the charity, Paper Trail, which works with victims and survivors of the conflict in the North of Ireland.

Rifleman Robert Arthurs of the 1st Battalion of the Royal Irish Rifles died one hundred and ten years ago today fighting at the Battle of Neuve-Chapelle. Robert is my great-great uncle.

🎧 World Wars and Local Memories

I woke up thinking about him on the 100th anniversary in that weary no-man’s land of not knowing whether he was my first thought this morning or whether I had been dreaming about him. I knew I would be writing about him in 2015. Time flies.

Robert was named after his father, my great-great grandfather, who worked in the docks. In 1901 the Arthurs family lived in Garmoyle Street in Sailortown, a hiving working-class community beneath the gantries on the northside of the basin.

My great grandfather Francis was a docker too and died in a work accident when he was crushed in a grain silo. His son, Robert, my grandfather, worked in the docks all of his life as well. Two of his sons were merchant seamen, and one, my uncle Robert, worked on the QE2, but that is a story for another day. So before we moved to Lepper Street in the New Lodge, the Arthurs family was Sailortown born, battered and bred.

Rifleman Robert Arthurs took to the sea with the Royal Irish Rifles and won a 1914 Star as a member of the British Expeditionary Force that fought from the outbreak of war in France and Belgium.

Whether it was misplaced adventure or answering Redmond’s misplaced call to arms, I do not know why Robert Arthurs joined the British Army to fight a rich man’s war. Nor is it for me to judge.

For it may be that he and his family like thousands of other Belfast families, simply needed means to feed themselves.

In the 1901 census Robert is recorded as 5 years of age but 18 in the census of 1911 (his brother John gained 3 years too). Academic and writer, John Ó Neill, sifted through baptism records to verify that the latter was correct. It was a small mercy that Robert was not a boy soldier when he joined the Rifles and only a teenager when he died in a corner of France far from his wife, Theresa, who by then was living in Dock Lane just around the corner from Garmoyle Street.

The Battle of Neuve-Chapelle

The battle of Neuve-Chapelle which began on 10th March 1915 marked a watershed not only for the battalion and the British Army, but also for the static warfare of the trenches. The first large scale, organized British offensive of the war showed that breakthrough could be achieved through planning, build-up and surprise.

As well as Battalions from Ireland, England, Scotland and Wales, there were many Indian regiments in the order of battle including the Garhwalhis and Gurkhas from the great Himalayan range, men who were even farther from home.

The Connaught Rangers were stationed in India at the outbreak of the war and accompanied the Lahore Division thousands of miles to the western front. The Devil’s Own now stood shoulder to shoulder with the 9th Bhopal Infantry and the 129th Baluchis, a lot closer to Tipperary now than they were - the Rangers had helped popularize the music hall tune, It's a Long, Long Way to Tipperary, at the outbreak of war.

For days above Robert’s head, the world’s first war planes buzzed about the skies and what a sight that must have been if his thoughts were not on home, his family and his own life. The night before the attack, a light snowfall turned to damp morning mist as he took his place in the line. After a thunderous barrage lifted and the squeal of a thousand whistles, Robert went over the top.

It was a world away from the Christmas Truce a few weeks earlier when the Royal Irish Riflemen were among thousands of troops from both sides who got up out of their freezing trenches and tromped across the snow in open ground to greet each other in no-man’s land – or in this one warm instant, everyman’s land.

Now, after the initial shock and awe, the British Army got bogged down once more in the mud, hampered by delay, and a breakdown in communication and supply. So, Neuve-Chapelle also became a pointer for the problems that lay ahead when commanders could not learn quickly, adapt and re-deploy.

Following a tremendous advance, the Royal Irish Rifles helped secure the village but they were ordered to stop. Then on the 12th and at bayonet point, the Rifles had to weather wave after wave of German counter-attack. The battalion held fast, but at the cost of over 450 souls.

Rifleman Robert Arthurs, our much loved family member, was one of those.

He is buried far from home but beside his comrades in Merville Communal Cemetery, close to Neuve-Chapelle.

In the Letters of Lt-Col. George Brenton Laurie. the commander of the 1st Battalion of the Royal Irish Rifles records this poem by Rifleman J. Dickson:

R.I.R.'s at Neuve-Chapelle
Come, please just pay attention, and a story I will tell

Of how the gallant R.I.R.'s were the first in Neuve Chapelle;

Colonel Laurie gave the order for the regiment to advance,

And when they met the Germans our boys did make them dance.

With bayonets fixed we rushed them, though outnumbered five to one;

Each one did prove a hero, and many a gallant deed was done;

Our noble Colonel, he was killed, our Major fell as well,

And a score of our brave officers lost their lives at Neuve Chapelle.

Our men were lost in hundreds, no regiment could do more,

And when the fight was over our officers numbered four;

Yet manfully they struggled amidst that living hell,

And out of all the British Army were the first in Neuve Chapelle.

Then here's to the gallant R.I.R., those riflemen so brave,

Who nobly did their duty and found a soldier's grave;

So may their glory ever shine, for they have proved their worth,

And laurels brought to Ireland for the honour of the North.

It is not for me to say that this was not his war. Instead it is with great pride that I remember Rifleman Robert Arthurs on the 110th anniversary of his death.

Le grá go deo.

This followed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) battle that has lasted over four years for the origin of police lies to the Northern Ireland government and the media seeking to blame the victims for the atrocity.

🎥 Watch the short film below.

Nevertheless, the PSNI has been allowed to redact much of the information and withhold other articles of evidence it has denied us access to for decades.

This made front page news today in the Irish News: PSNI ‘Continues to Withhold McGurk’s Bar Massacre Information’

Thanks as always to journalist Connla Young.

You can read my analysis here »

This great memorial was not decided upon in a vacuum. Habinteg, the housing association in charge of building the new homes in the area, contacted the local St. Patrick and St. Joseph Housing Committee and asked for ideas for a street name. The committee contacted local families and then the campaigning families of the McGurk's victims because McGurk's Walk was the resounding choice. They kindly broached it with us before formalizing their choice but we agreed warmly that this was a fitting tribute.

Habinteg disagreed though and thought it "too political". They put forward alternative names but none of these were accepted by the people of the area. An issue politicized by the housing association was placed in front of the council and, of course, the normal tribal lines were drawn.

For some there was the viable argument that a city looking forward to the future should not have daily reminders of a dirty war in the past, regardless of the innocence of the dead and injured. A British Unionist councillor said:

The terrible suffering caused by violence in this city should never be forgotten. However I do not believe that the formal naming or renaming of streets after incidents of mass-killings and murder is an appropriate or helpful way of doing that.

Unfortunately when it was in session at the council, members whose votes could have held sway were absent on other business. The residents' wishes were not listened to and the name "Fisher's Court" was voted in instead.

But all was not lost...

The residents' committee was well aware that they could petition to have the street name changed if the vast majority of the residents who were moving into the development were in agreement. They were and the committee pressed on and placed its own sign up until the petition was officially passed.

In June 2011, they invited the families down for the unveiling of the street plaque that they made especially. The residents chose to name their street "McGurk's Way", "Bealach Mhic Oirc".

One family member remarked that the next street beside it could be renamed "Truth Close".

How touched the families were by the community's tribute could not be understated. We registered the depth and significance of the place-naming gesture as both a topographical and an historical marker.

The naming of places by our forebears and the etymology of place names are important in every country and language. They are echoes of a very local history as well as a national heritage. This is particularly true of Irish (and Ulster-Scot) oral and written tradition as these names, received from pre-history at times, bind the local topography, language and peoples of the past to those of today.

It is a tradition no better exemplified than in the epic Táin Bó Cuailgne or Cattle Raid of Cooley. Place names and their very genesis form a mnemonic map of Ireland and narrative alike. Even its characters become part of the landscape when they surrender their names to specific places. In doing so they become memorable for the part that they have played in the gathered stories.

Therefore, story-teller and reader commemorate them as they are now the sinews of the local landscape and the text.

That part of Belfast has changed utterly in even two generations. The West Link fly-over races over the spot where the bar once stood. This symbolizes progress and modernity on one hand. As you pass the site, it is easy to imagine people going about their daily grind apart from the history of the place.

On the other, it represents how town planners re-drew Belfast to befit a city at war. St. Joseph's parish, Sailortown, particularly was decimated, although its spirit remains, as the arterial route cut a swathe through it. History was lost - it is no coincidence that this was an Irish Catholic community by then - but at least the Falls and Shankill are kept from each other's throats.

Thanks to the community between St. Patrick's Church and the West Link, McGurk's and the memory of McGurk's is woven into the topography of the city. When future generations trace the etymology of the place and attend to its narrative, let us hope that they have learned from it - great heroes have surrendered themselves for its name.

First, a charity is a non-profit-making organisation that maintains its social mission through funding and donations. In Paper Trail’s case, it is funded by PEACEPLUS and Victims and Survivors Service.

It also receives donations in the past from the likes of the Irish American Unity Conference and my writing here on Substack elsewhere.

Next, a social enterprise is a business with primarily social objectives that sells products and services and reinvests any surpluses in the charity or local community so that it can advance its social mission.

So, Paper Trail sells its expert services in legacy archive research to the legal profession and media to support its charitable work with victims and survivors.

Mission

Paper Trail’s social mission is to discover historical information buried in public archives relating to the conflict in Ireland and Britain and to ensure that it reaches the families who need and deserve it - victims and survivors from across the community impacted by the violence.

This information in official archives may be upsetting, especially since it has been hidden for so long, but I believe that it is the families' by right.

Paper Trail has a vision for open government and freedom of information for the benefit of every Irish and British citizen.

Business for Social Good

Paper Trail has its genesis in my own pursuit for truth in justice regarding the murder of my grandmother in the McGurk’s Bar Massacre of 4th December 1971. Kathleen Irvine was one of fifteen civilians murdered that night by British extremists. Two children lay among the dead too.

To compound the families’ grief, the British armed forces blamed the attack on the victims and have covered up the true circumstances of the atrocity for over half a century.

You can read about the families’ ongoing Campaign for Truth here.

For many years before the founding of Paper Trail, I helped other families access information regarding the death of their loved ones, and worked closely with their legal representatives to help build their cases.

More families sought support and legal firms asked to pay for my time, so we created Paper Trail as a charity and social enterprise. Although it is much more difficult to manage a charity and social enterprise, it best suited the ethos of the work I did and I felt more comfortable selling my legacy archive services as long as any profit was reinvested to support the work of Paper Trail.

So, Paper Trail helps families in their search for truth, and it is driven by a simple belief in human rights and social justice. It is run on a shoestring budget and I am the Paper Trail’s sole employee, but this means I have to learn new skills and innovate to save time and money for the charity.

10 Years Later

Unfortunately, the need for Paper Trail has grown since 2014, mainly due to the failure of the British government to deal with the legacy of its past.

You can read about its work over the last decade here.

However rewarding and valuable, Paper Trail's work remains laborious, time-consuming, and costly, but we did all of this with the support of families and volunteers from across the community over the last decade.

Every penny counts.

You can follow us here and on Paper Trail’s website.

Niall was also Chair of the charity, Paper Trail Legacy Archive Research, throughout its 10-year existence. In his spare time, he also volunteered for Paper Trail and was a member of the Victims Forum for many years, fighting for the basic rights of victims and survivors of the British/Irish conflict regardless of their background.

He has packed so much more into his short life and you can read about that here »>

Among the many families who will sadly miss him are the campaigning families impacted by the McGurk’s Bar Massacre. Niall was a constant supporter and adviser over the last two decades.

His greatest accomplishment for the families may now be his help in convincing the Attorney General to order new inquests into the 15 murders in late April 2024 just before his diagnosis with cancer.

His passing made local and national news.

Tributes in the Media

Irish News: North Belfast victims’ campaigner remembered for his campaigning work

North Belfast News: Tributes paid to teacher and lawyer, Niall Ó Murchú

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Niall is survived by 4 fine sons, his partner Rosie, and his loving family.

The work of the charity Paper Trail will be a small part of his great legacy too.

Subscribe now

As readers of our McGurk’s Bar Campaign for Truth website are aware, before we could even lay our loved ones to rest, the British state buried the truth about the Massacre. John Taylor played a crucial role in the plot to portray the innocent civilians killed in the attack by British extremists as criminals.

He has yet to admit whether he was a patsy or a wilful liar.

Taylor's campaign of misinformation started the day after the Loyalist bombing and persists to this day.

The latest smear originated after an anonymous Twitter/X user tweeted:

“This fine evening I’m thinking of the innocent people murdered in the McGurks Bar Massacre. I’m also thinking of your disgusting lies you told. As you go to your pit this night I hope your conscience gets the better of you and you apologise soon before you meet your maker. TICK TOCK.”

Taylor replied:

“You claim they were innocent!!”

I responded:

“Taylor still attempting to sully the good names of the victims of the #McGurks Bar Massacre. We've long asked him whether he was a patsy or a liar. Unless he can prove what he insinuates about our loved ones, he should keep his unfounded lies to himself.”

Another family member was upset and tweeted:

“My great granny's husband was innocent.”

Taylor responded:

“No court made that decision.”

This is an obviously ridiculous argument. Unless Taylor implies that only the Irish Catholic victims of the McGurk's Bar Massacre must prove their innocence in a court of law, can one fathom a society where the initial assumption is that all or any victims of our conflict were guilty and somehow deserving of their murder until courts declared them innocent? Such a notion is both absurd and perilous, continuing a troubling pattern of Taylor's efforts to criminalize our loved ones while neglecting to offer an apology over the years. This refusal is exacerbated each time he reaffirms his previous abhorrent remarks.

In 2018, he tweeted:

“I have never had any evidence that the [UVF] was involved in the McGurks Bar bomb. It was a drinking hole for IRA sympathisers who have subsequently carried out a political campaign to place the blame on the UVF. I have never received evidence to support this.”

However, a member of the UVF admitted to being part of the bombing unit and was subsequently sentenced to life in prison for the mass murder. 

Historic investigators have documented that both the British Army Intelligence and the Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) did not regard the pub as affiliated with the IRA. Instead, McGurk’s Bar was well-known locally as a well-managed pub catering to an older clientele where discussions on political or religious matters were prohibited. It even had a swear box in the bar - punters were fined if they used bad language and the cash collected was given to local charities.

British Army records shortly after the bombing corroborate this. At 9:28 PM (21:28 hours), roughly 42 minutes following the explosion, the 2nd Battalion of the Royal Regiment Fusiliers (2 RRF) informed 39 Brigade Headquarters:

“Owner of pub a moderate RC [Roman Catholic] unlikely to have allowed people to use it as a mtg [meeting] place. Bar close to Gem Bar which is a [REDACTED].”

The Gem Bar was marked by the British Army as a meeting spot for the local Official IRA and was initially the target for the bombers concerning McGurk's Bar. Just two nights prior, the British Army had targeted the Gem Bar.

Taylor’s Disinformation in the Aftermath of the Atrocity

At the time of the McGurk’s Bar Massacre and its resulting cover-up, John Taylor held the position of Minister of State for Home Affairs.

The Irish Independent on December 6, 1971, reported remarks from him the day before:

“I personally would be very surprised if this was the start of a Protestant backlash. The evidence at the moment is that the Protestant community are facing up to the IRA campaign in a very responsible manner and are quite prepared to leave the initiative to the politicians and the security forces. I would dismiss the idea that it was the Protestants.”

Additionally, the Birmingham Post quoted him on the same day:

“One is absolutely horrified that there are people in Ireland – whether from Northern Ireland or the Republic – that are prepared to kill fellow Irishmen in this manner.”

On December 7, 1971, during a meeting at Stormont, he stated:

“There have been conflicting theories about the cause of this explosion and one has seen displayed again the unfortunate fact that in Northern Ireland people believe exactly what they want to believe and nothing more. The plain fact is that the evidence of the forensic experts supports the theory that the explosion took place within the confines of the wall.”

However, what Taylor did tell Stormont or the public—or what he may not have been informed about—was that a British Army bomb disposal expert had advised Brigade Headquarters and subsequently Headquarters Northern Ireland at 11:10 am 5th December that:

“ATO [Ammunition Technical Officer] is convinced bomb was placed in entranceway on ground floor. The area is cratered and clearly was the seat of the explosion.”

This placed the seat of the explosion outside the main bar and in the enclosed hallway - the exact place a young witness saw the UVF plant the bomb. The British armed forces knew that the bar was attacked.

British Army and RUC Collusion

Within the same British military documents, I discovered that the dreadful disinformation regarding our loved ones originated from a secret agreement between the notorious Brigadier Frank Kitson and the Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC). The diary of the 39 Brigade Commander Diary noted an instruction from Kitson, the Brigade Commander, shortly over four hours after the explosion at McGurk’s Bar:

“RUC have a line that the bomb in the pub was a bomb designed to be used elsewhere, left in the pub to be picked up by Provisional IRA. Bomb went off and was a mistake. RUC press office have a line on it – NI should deal with them”.

Kitson colluded with the RUC to spread falsehoods about the McGurk's Bar.

Additionally, I also demonstrated that the RUC intentionally misled the Northern Irish government during a Joint Security Committee (JSC) meeting on December 16, 1971, which was attended by John Taylor. The Chief Constable and the Head of Special Branch presented false claims in an RUC report during this JSC meeting:

“Circumstantial evidence indicates that this was a premature detonation and two of those killed were known IRA members at least one of whom had been associated with bombing activities. Intelligence indicates that the bomb was destined for use elsewhere in the city.”

I have consistently pushed the police to either back up these falsehoods or acknowledge that the police fabricated them.

The same applies to Taylor, who still has not adequately explained the misinformation he repeated after the McGurk’s Bar Massacre. Either he was misled or he lied.

Records do indeed prove that the British armed forces provided Taylor with false information, and therefore may have duped him into being a conduit for their disinformation (a topic I explored in The Plot To Deceive Two Governments); or that he was aware of the deception but chose to continue making such statements. If the former is true, Taylor could have, at any moment in the past 15 years or more, simply admitted that the British armed forces and/or his office misled him or concealed facts. He could have washed his hands of the terrible lies.

Instead, he yet again seeks to tarnish the reputations of the victims. His latest unfounded accusations come just weeks before the 53rd anniversary of the mass murder and its cover-up, and a few days after the funeral of another advocate for the McGurk’s Bar cause.

His baseless accusations will only serve to further traumatize the families once more. He knows that too. And that is why the families have initiated legal action against his ongoing harassment.

You can read about that here »

Paper Trail Legacy Archive Research - Paper Trail for short - is a micro-charity that supports victims and survivors of the conflict in Ireland and Britain. I say micro-charity as I am a lone worker, albeit one with the support of a great board.

Paper Trail offers free advocacy support and training to victims and survivors. The vast majority of families contact Paper Trail to help them find evidence in public archives that have remained hidden for decades.

You can read how successful this work has been in 10 years here »

I have launched the Paper Trail Pro publication for the charity on Substack to consolidate all of my online writing in one place as I also write for family campaigns on the McGurk’s Bar Massacre Campaign for Truth, the Time for Truth Campaign, and my own website.

I am a writer, activist, and legacy archive researcher. Legacy archives in my work with the charity are those [secret] files in public records that pertain to the conflict in Ireland and Britain since 1966 at least.

Paper Trail’s mission is to discover and retrieve new information for victims and survivors across the community as I believe that we all have a basic human right to truth, justice, and acknowledgment.

New Evidence

So, on behalf of families, I investigate the underbelly of the dirty war that raged in Ireland and Britain for a generation; I hunt for files hidden across Britain and Ireland; and I ensure new information reaches the families who need it most.

At the heart of this work are love stories - families and loved ones like our own who have been impacted by terrible violence. Paper Trail helps to tell their stories.

Much of this work will feature in headline news and high-profile court cases but you can read it here first for free.

Paper Trail has secured funding from the European Union’s PEACEPLUS fund but legacy archive research remains costly and time-consuming. The charity functions on a shoestring budget.

Paper Trail is investigating terrible cases involving the death of over 200 people and the injury of more than 400. It has provided new evidence in the inquests of over 60 murders as well as dozens of civil cases, judicial reviews, and information tribunals. Paper Trail’s evidence has also helped support a family in the British Supreme Court.

Therefore, all money earned from paid subscribers to Paper Trail Pro here on Substack will go directly to the charity and its work with victims and survivors.

Kitson was a military strategist and “counter-insurgency” expert of international repute. He was in charge of the British Army’s 39 Brigade that occupied the Greater Belfast area although his tactics became the blueprint for how Britain waged its war in Ireland.

Pseudo-gangs, pyschological operations, in-depth interrogation, murder and mayhem became the order of the day

MacAirt argues Kitson’s strategies left a lasting, dreadful legacy on the lives of many families which Britain is fighting to bury to this day.

The episode provides historical analysis and investigates Kitson’s methods, raising questions about their impact on civilians and the ethics of military tactics.