Dominic McGlinchey

Dominic McGlinchey
Born 1953/1954
Bellaghy, County Londonderry, Northern Ireland
Died 10 February 1994 (aged 39–40)
Drogheda, County Louth, Republic of Ireland
Allegiance Irish National Liberation Army (1982–1994; his death)
Provisional Irish Republican Army (1979–1982)
Commands held Chief of Staff (INLA)
Conflict The Troubles

Dominic McGlinchey (1953/1954 – 10 February 1994) was a Republican who moved from the Provisional IRA to become head of the Irish National Liberation Army (INLA), an Irish republican paramilitary group. Although active in attacks on British security forces, McGlinchy's indiscriminate ruthlessness led to him being the first Republican extradited from Ireland. An internecine conflict centered around McGlinchey and a rebellious faction he had attempted to impose his authority on greatly weakened the INLA and he was shot dead in a revenge attack in 1994.

Background

McGlinchey was one of 11 siblings born into a large Bellaghy, County Londonderry family, with a "strong republican background".[1]

Paramilitary activities

In August 1971, at the age of 17, he was interned without charge for ten months at Ballykelly (Shackleton Barracks) and Long Kesh. After his release, he was imprisoned again in 1973 on arms charges.[2]

After his next release, he joined a South Derry Independent Republican Unit along with Ian Milne and future Provisional IRA hunger strikers Francis Hughes and Thomas McElwee. The unit would later merge with the Provisional IRA. Their activities led the Royal Ulster Constabulary to take the unusual step of issuing wanted posters.[3]

IRA

McGlinchey was arrested by the Gardaí in 1977, and charged with hijacking a police vehicle in County Monaghan, threatening a police officer with a gun, and resisting arrest. In 1982, while serving time in Portlaoise Prison, he clashed with the IRA leadership and despite his effectiveness in an active service unit he was expelled from the IRA.[2]

INLA

The INLA welcomed McGlinchey because of his previous experience. He joined as Operations Officer for South Derry in 1982, and became Chief of Staff within six months. Under McGlinchey the organisation, which previously had a reputation for disorganization and incompetence became extremely active in cross border assassinations and bombings.[2] In a Sunday Tribune interview, McGlinchey admitted involvement in the Droppin Well bombing in Ballykelly, County Londonderry, in which eleven off-duty soldiers and six civilians were murdered. He also said he had provided the weapons for the Darkley massacre, an attack on a remote evangelical Protestant chapel, but had not approved that attack.[4] It has been alleged that he was targeted for assassination by 14 Intelligence Company.[5]

Internal feud

Tim Pat Coogan, a historian of the Irish republican movement, asserted that McGlinchey's authority within the INLA was absolute and that he re-enforced it by ordering the deaths of "anyone he didn't like". Other authors claimed that decisions were actually taken collectively by a council of leading members, although those disgruntled with the outcomes tended to attribute everything solely to McGlinchey.[6]

When a powerful northern unit based around an extended family did not turn over £50,000 raised in a fake postal order scheme (which was essential to the INLA's finances) the scheme's originator insisted that unless the offending unit was punished he would not supply any more funds. It was decided, reportedly against McGlinchey's objections, that members of the northern faction were to be killed. Two were summoned to a meeting; Mary McGlinchey acted as an emissary thus lulling the pair into thinking that there would be no danger of violence. However, they were led to waiting gunmen and shot dead. The incident was the beginning of a feud between the northern family and McGlinchey, whereby a long running series of tit for tat revenge killings between the factions eventually led to the demise of the original participants on both sides.[6]

Imprisonment and release

In March 1984 McGlinchey was wounded in a shoot-out with the Gardaí in Ralahine, Ralahine, Newmarket on Fergus, County Clare and arrested.[7] McGlinchey was wanted in the north for the shooting of an elderly woman, this was deemed by a judge in the south to be a "cowardly" act that disqualified him from the protection afforded for political offences and he became the first Republican to be extradited to Northern Ireland. He was convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment after being convicted of murder. This conviction was overturned in October 1985 by the Belfast Court of Appeals on grounds of insufficient evidence, and McGlinchey was returned to the Republic of Ireland, where he was sentenced to ten years' imprisonment on firearms charges.[8] Mary McGlinchey was killed in her Dundalk home by INLA gunmen who broke in while she was bathing her children on 31 January 1987. McGlinchey was unable to attend his wife's funeral as he was still imprisoned in the Republic.[2]

After being released from prison in March 1993, he investigated claims that criminals in the Republic were involved in money laundering with the Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF). He survived an assassination attempt by UVF Mid-Ulster Brigade leader Billy Wright in June 1993.[2]

Death

Gravestone erected to Dominic McGlinchey.

On 10 February 1994, McGlinchey was making a call from a phone box in Drogheda when two men got out of a vehicle and shot him 14 times. No one has been charged with his killing and it is not known who carried out the assassination or why.[9]

His funeral took place in his native Bellaghy.[10] The mourners included Martin McGuinness and Ruairí Ó Brádaigh. The oration was delivered by Bernadette McAliskey. During the oration she described journalists, particularly from the Sunday Independent, who had claimed that McGlinchy was involved in criminality as:

curs and dogs. May everyone of them rot in hell. They have taken away Dominic McGlinchy's character and they will stand judgement for it. He was the finest Republican of them all. He never dishonoured the cause he believed in. His war was with the armed soldiers and the police of this state.[10]

Family

He married Mary O'Neill on 5 July 1975. The couple had three children: Declan (died 2015), Dominic, and Máire (who died as an infant from meningitis). Mary later became a member of the INLA.[11] Dominic Jr. also became a republican activist.[12][13]

In October 2006, Declan McGlinchey was remanded in custody at Derry Magistrates' Court on explosives charges. The charges were connected to the discovery of a bomb in Bellaghy in July.[14] He was cleared of these charges.[15] He was again arrested on 14 March 2009 in connection with the murder of Police Service of Northern Ireland Constable Stephen Carroll but no charges were brought. Declan McGlinchey died suddenly of a heart attack on 1 November 2015, aged 39.[16]

Song

Dominic McGlinchey is the subject of the songs "Paddy Public Enemy Number One" by Shane MacGowan of The Pogues, and "Hands up Trousers Down" by The Irish Brigade.[17] The former charts McGlinchey's life from his teens through to his eventual killing in a phonebox while the latter references his theft and use of Garda uniforms.[18][19]

References

  1. ↑ Coogan, Tim Pat, The IRA.; ISBN 0-00-653155-5
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 "A brutal killing that is unlikely to be resolved". The Argus. 1 February 2007. Archived from the original on 10 October 2007. Retrieved 9 January 2009.
  3. ↑ "House of Commons Hansard Debates for 26 Apr 2006 (pt 28)". Hansard. 26 April 2006. Retrieved 21 February 2007.
  4. ↑ Obituary: Dominic McGlinchey, independent.co.uk; accessed 6 November 2015.
  5. ↑ Taylor, Peter (2002). BRITS: The War Against the IRA. Bloomsbury. pp. 243–47. ISBN 0-7475-5806-X.
  6. 1 2 Holland, Jack and McDonald, Henry (1996). INLA Deadly Divisions. Poolbeg; ISBN 1-85371-263-9.
  7. ↑ "1981–84: Hunger strikes and the Brighton bomb". BBC News. 18 March 1999. Retrieved 21 February 2007.
  8. ↑ "1985–87: The Anglo-Irish Agreement". BBC News. 18 March 1999. Retrieved 21 February 2007.
  9. ↑ Dominic McGlinchey assassination, cain.ulst.ac.uk; accessed 6 November 2015.
  10. 1 2 Coogan, p. 541
  11. ↑ "Dominic McGlinchey profile". MIPT Terrorism Knowledge Base. Retrieved 11 October 2006.
  12. ↑ Tony Macauley (28 August 2006). "What the papers say". BBC News. Retrieved 21 February 2007.
  13. ↑ "Dissident groups out to challenge SF". Belfast Today. 30 August 2006. Retrieved 21 February 2007.
  14. ↑ "Ex-INLA man's son on bomb charges". BBC News. 27 October 2006. Retrieved 21 February 2007.
  15. ↑ "McGlinchey cleared of bomb charge". BBC News. 28 August 2009. Retrieved 26 August 2009.
  16. ↑ Declan McGlinchey dies suddenly, belfasttelegraph.co.uk; accessed 6 November 2015.
  17. ↑ "He Will Not Go Gently" Archived October 17, 2007, at the Wayback Machine., shanemacgowan.com; accessed 6 November 2015.
  18. ↑ Enemy No1 (lyrics by Shane MacGowan) Archived October 22, 2007, at the Wayback Machine., shanemacgowan.com; accessed 6 November 2015.
  19. ↑ Triskelle editorial Archived January 1, 2011, at the Wayback Machine., triskelle.eu, 2007.
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