John Francis Green (18 December 1946– 10 January 1975), was a leading member of the North Armagh Brigade of the
Provisional Irish Republican Army
The Irish Republican Army (IRA; ), also known as the Provisional Irish Republican Army, and informally as the Provos, was an Irish republican paramilitary organisation that sought to end British rule in Northern Ireland, facilitate Irish reun ...
, holding the rank of Staff Captain and Intelligence Officer. He was killed in a farmhouse outside
Castleblayney
Castleblayney (; ) is a town in County Monaghan, Ireland. The town had a population of 3,607 as of the 2016 census. Castleblayney is near the border with County Armagh in Northern Ireland, and lies on the N2 road from Dublin to Derry and Let ...
,
County Monaghan
County Monaghan ( ; ga, Contae Mhuineacháin) is a county in Ireland. It is in the province of Ulster and is part of Border strategic planning area of the Northern and Western Region. It is named after the town of Monaghan. Monaghan County Cou ...
, by members of the
Mid-Ulster Brigade of the
Ulster Volunteer Force
The Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF) is an Ulster loyalist paramilitary group. Formed in 1965, it first emerged in 1966. Its first leader was Gusty Spence, a former British Army soldier from Northern Ireland. The group undertook an armed campaig ...
(UVF). According to
Intelligence Corps member
Fred Holroyd,
Special Reconnaissance Unit
The Special Reconnaissance Unit, also known as the 14 Field Security and Intelligence Company (internally "The Det") was a part of the British Army Intelligence Corps involved in plainclothes operations in Northern Ireland from the 1970s onwa ...
officer
Robert Nairac
Captain Robert Laurence Nairac (31 August 1948 – 15 May 1977) was a British Army officer in the Grenadier Guards who was abducted from a pub in Dromintee, south County Armagh, during an undercover operation and killed by the Provisional Irish ...
was involved in Green's killing. Green's was one of the 87 killings attributed by the
Pat Finucane Centre
The Pat Finucane Centre (PFC) is a human rights advocacy and lobbying entity in Northern Ireland. Named in honour of murdered solicitor Pat Finucane, it operates advice centres in Derry and Newry, dealing mainly with complaints from Irish nati ...
to the group of
Ulster loyalist
Ulster loyalism is a strand of Ulster unionism associated with working class Ulster Protestants in Northern Ireland. Like other unionists, loyalists support the continued existence of Northern Ireland within the United Kingdom, and oppose a uni ...
paramilitaries,
Ulster Defence Regiment
The Ulster Defence Regiment (UDR) was an infantry regiment of the British Army established in 1970, with a comparatively short existence ending in 1992. Raised through public appeal, newspaper and television advertisements,Potter p25 their offi ...
soldiers and
Royal Ulster Constabulary
The Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) was the police force in Northern Ireland from 1922 to 2001. It was founded on 1 June 1922 as a successor to the Royal Irish Constabulary (RIC)Richard Doherty, ''The Thin Green Line – The History of the Royal ...
officers known as the
Glenanne gang
The Glenanne gang or Glenanne group was a secret informal alliance of Ulster loyalists who carried out shooting and bombing attacks against Catholics and Irish nationalists in the 1970s, during the Troubles. . No one was ever prosecuted for the killing.
Provisional IRA
Green was born in
Lurgan
Lurgan () is a town in County Armagh, Northern Ireland, near the southern shore of Lough Neagh. Lurgan is about south-west of Belfast and is linked to the city by both the M1 motorway and the Belfast–Dublin railway line. It had a population ...
,
County Armagh
County Armagh (, named after its county town, Armagh) is one of the six counties of Northern Ireland and one of the traditional thirty-two counties of Ireland. Adjoined to the southern shore of Lough Neagh, the county covers an area of and ha ...
,
Northern Ireland
Northern Ireland ( ga, Tuaisceart Éireann ; sco, label= Ulster-Scots, Norlin Airlann) is a part of the United Kingdom, situated in the north-east of the island of Ireland, that is variously described as a country, province or region. Nort ...
and grew up in a
Roman Catholic
Roman or Romans most often refers to:
*Rome, the capital city of Italy
*Ancient Rome, Roman civilization from 8th century BC to 5th century AD
*Roman people, the people of ancient Rome
*'' Epistle to the Romans'', shortened to ''Romans'', a lette ...
family. He was an active member of the civil rights campaign, and later joined the
Provisional Irish Republican Army
The Irish Republican Army (IRA; ), also known as the Provisional Irish Republican Army, and informally as the Provos, was an Irish republican paramilitary organisation that sought to end British rule in Northern Ireland, facilitate Irish reun ...
. He held the rank of Staff Captain and Intelligence Officer in the North Armagh Brigade. Green was forced to "go on the run" following the introduction of
internment
Internment is the imprisonment of people, commonly in large groups, without charges or intent to file charges. The term is especially used for the confinement "of enemy citizens in wartime or of terrorism suspects". Thus, while it can simpl ...
in August 1971, but was arrested and interned on the
''Maidstone'' prison ship. Green was afterwards transferred to
Long Kesh
Long may refer to:
Measurement
* Long, characteristic of something of great duration
* Long, characteristic of something of great length
* Longitude (abbreviation: long.), a geographic coordinate
* Longa (music), note value in early music mens ...
internment camp. On 9 September 1973, Green escaped from Long Kesh disguised as a priest. During a visit with his brother, Fr. Gerrard Green, a Catholic priest, the two men exchanged clothing, and Green made his escape undetected by the guards. Gerrard was later discovered tied up in one of the prison's compounds.
Killing
Following his escape, Green lived in the
Monaghan
Monaghan ( ; ) is the county town of County Monaghan, Republic of Ireland, Ireland. It also provides the name of its Civil parishes in Ireland, civil parish and Monaghan (barony), barony.
The population of the town as of the 2016 census was 7 ...
and
Castleblayney
Castleblayney (; ) is a town in County Monaghan, Ireland. The town had a population of 3,607 as of the 2016 census. Castleblayney is near the border with County Armagh in Northern Ireland, and lies on the N2 road from Dublin to Derry and Let ...
areas. An Irish government agent,
Sean O'Callaghan
Sean O'Callaghan (10 October 1954 – 23 August 2017) was a member of the Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA), who from the late 1970s to the mid-1980s worked against the organisation from within as an intelligence agent for the Irish Gover ...
, states he met Green at an IRA training camp in
County Kerry
County Kerry ( gle, Contae Chiarraí) is a county in Ireland. It is located in the South-West Region and forms part of the province of Munster. It is named after the Ciarraige who lived in part of the present county. The population of the co ...
at the end of 1973. During the IRA Christmas ceasefire in 1974, Green returned home to Lurgan to visit his family. While he was there a
British Army
The British Army is the principal land warfare force of the United Kingdom, a part of the British Armed Forces along with the Royal Navy and the Royal Air Force. , the British Army comprises 79,380 regular full-time personnel, 4,090 Gurk ...
patrol arrived at his house and carried out a routine check-up, the Green family being prominent
republicans. On the evening of 10 January 1975, he drove to a farmhouse in Mullyash, outside Castleblayney. When the farmer, an elderly republican sympathiser, went to tend a neighbour's cow,
Ulster loyalist
Ulster loyalism is a strand of Ulster unionism associated with working class Ulster Protestants in Northern Ireland. Like other unionists, loyalists support the continued existence of Northern Ireland within the United Kingdom, and oppose a uni ...
gunmen from the
UVF Mid-Ulster Brigade
UVF Mid-Ulster Brigade formed part of the loyalist paramilitary Ulster Volunteer Force in Northern Ireland. The brigade was established in Lurgan, County Armagh in 1972 by its first commander Billy Hanna. The unit operated mainly around the Lurga ...
kicked down the front door and shot Green six times in the head at close range, killing him instantly. To the
Ulster Volunteer Force
The Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF) is an Ulster loyalist paramilitary group. Formed in 1965, it first emerged in 1966. Its first leader was Gusty Spence, a former British Army soldier from Northern Ireland. The group undertook an armed campaig ...
in mid-Ulster, Green was a high-profile target. According to journalist
Peter Taylor Peter Taylor may refer to:
Arts
* Peter Taylor (writer) (1917–1994), American author, winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction
* Peter Taylor (film editor) (1922–1997), English film editor, winner of an Academy Award for Film Editing
Politi ...
, the killers left behind some bullets in the shape of the letters ''UVF''. The UVF claimed responsibility for the killing in the June 1975 edition of its magazine ''Combat''. Green's killing occurred during an IRA ceasefire, which had been declared the previous month.
Allegations
It was claimed by
Royal Ulster Constabulary
The Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) was the police force in Northern Ireland from 1922 to 2001. It was founded on 1 June 1922 as a successor to the Royal Irish Constabulary (RIC)Richard Doherty, ''The Thin Green Line – The History of the Royal ...
(RUC)
Special Patrol Group
The Special Patrol Group (SPG) was a unit of Greater London's Metropolitan Police Service, responsible for providing a centrally based mobile capacity to combat serious public disorder, crime, and terrorism, that could not be dealt with by loca ...
(SPG) officer
John Weir, that the UVF killers were
Robin Jackson
Robert John Jackson (27 September 1948 – 30 May 1998), also known as The Jackal, was a Northern Irish loyalist paramilitary and part-time soldier. He was a senior officer in the Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF) during the period of viole ...
(who was also allegedly involved in the
1974 Dublin car bombings as well as a series of sectarian killings),
Robert McConnell, and
Harris Boyle
Harris Boyle (1953 – 31 July 1975) was an Ulster Defence Regiment (UDR) soldier and a high-ranking member of the Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF), a Northern Irish loyalist paramilitary organisation. Boyle was implicated in the 1974 Dublin a ...
. The men, including Weir, were all members of the
Glenanne gang
The Glenanne gang or Glenanne group was a secret informal alliance of Ulster loyalists who carried out shooting and bombing attacks against Catholics and Irish nationalists in the 1970s, during the Troubles. , which was made up of rogue elements of the RUC,
Ulster Defence Regiment
The Ulster Defence Regiment (UDR) was an infantry regiment of the British Army established in 1970, with a comparatively short existence ending in 1992. Raised through public appeal, newspaper and television advertisements,Potter p25 their offi ...
, and the UVF Mid-Ulster Brigade. These allegations were published in the 2003 Barron Report, which was the findings of an official investigation of the bombings by Irish Supreme Court Justice
Henry Barron. In the same report, Weir claimed that he had received information from an informer that
Special Reconnaissance Unit
The Special Reconnaissance Unit, also known as the 14 Field Security and Intelligence Company (internally "The Det") was a part of the British Army Intelligence Corps involved in plainclothes operations in Northern Ireland from the 1970s onwa ...
officer
Robert Nairac
Captain Robert Laurence Nairac (31 August 1948 – 15 May 1977) was a British Army officer in the Grenadier Guards who was abducted from a pub in Dromintee, south County Armagh, during an undercover operation and killed by the Provisional Irish ...
was also involved in Green's killing. The 1993
Yorkshire Television
ITV Yorkshire, previously known as Yorkshire Television and commonly referred to as just YTV, is the British television service provided by ITV Broadcasting Limited for the Yorkshire franchise area on the ITV (TV network), ITV network. Until 19 ...
documentary ''The Hidden Hand: The Forgotten Massacre'' states that Robin Jackson and his UVF comrades were controlled by Nairac, who was attached to 14th Intelligence Company.
Intelligence Corps officer
Fred Holroyd claimed that Nairac had personally killed Green, who was, according to Holroyd, commander of the Provisional Battalion of North Armagh. Holroyd also claimed that Nairac boasted about the killing and had shown him a colour polaroid photograph of Green's corpse taken after the killing. Holroyd also told the
Garda Síochána
(; meaning "the Guardian(s) of the Peace"), more commonly referred to as the Gardaí (; "Guardians") or "the Guards", is the national police service of Ireland. The service is headed by the Garda Commissioner who is appointed by the Irish Gover ...
that he had received a photograph of Green some months prior to his killing. Holroyd enlarged the photograph and had it distributed. He believed from that time until Green's death, 4 Field Survey Troop, one of the three sub-units of the 14th Intelligence Company led by Captains Nairac and
Tony Ball
Tony Ball is a British television executive, former chairman of Kabel Deutschland and former CEO of BSkyB.
Biography
Born and educated in London, Ball received an MBA from Kingston University and later an honorary doctorate.
Career
Ball joined ...
, had Green placed under surveillance. Nairac's claim has been discounted by two Garda investigations which revealed that the polaroid was one of a series taken of Green's body by a Garda officer the morning following his fatal shooting.
Years after the death of John Francis Green, journalist Peter Taylor conducted an interview with his brother, Leo, who had been a key figure in the
1980 hunger strike at the Maze Prison. When asked about John Francis' killers, Leo told Taylor he believed they had been "loyalists or British Army or a combination of both". Green went on to add that the UVF's motives for killing his brother may not have been solely on account that John Francis was a prominent IRA member.
I would suggest that it would have annoyed the loyalists that there was a RAtruce with the British Government
ga, Rialtas a Shoilse gd, Riaghaltas a Mhòrachd
, image = HM Government logo.svg
, image_size = 220px
, image2 = Royal Coat of Arms of the United Kingdom (HM Government).svg
, image_size2 = 180px
, caption = Royal Arms
, date_es ...
and there may well have been fear that some sort of negotiated settlement was going on behind their backs. Probably my brother's killing would have been designed to anger and provoke the IRA into breaking the truce.
Aftermath
A post-mortem revealed that John Francis Green had been shot six times in the head at close range, the bullets all having entered from the front. At the time of his death, Green was married and the father of three children.
After his killing, the Gardaí found Green's car (a
Volkswagen Beetle
The Volkswagen Beetle—officially the Volkswagen Type 1, informally in German (meaning "beetle"), in parts of the English-speaking world the Bug, and known by many other nicknames in other languages—is a two-door, rear-engine economy car, ...
) parked beside the house. They discovered weapons, ammunition and documents hidden behind the backseat. In the glove compartment were 26 photographs of members of the Provisional and
Official IRA
The Official Irish Republican Army or Official IRA (OIRA; ) was an Irish republican paramilitary group whose goal was to remove Northern Ireland from the United Kingdom and create a "workers' republic" encompassing all of Ireland. It emerged ...
, all of whom were wanted by the security forces in Northern Ireland. A further search inside the house and the grounds disclosed more ammunition and bomb-making materials.
Green's killing was one of 87 which the
Pat Finucane Centre
The Pat Finucane Centre (PFC) is a human rights advocacy and lobbying entity in Northern Ireland. Named in honour of murdered solicitor Pat Finucane, it operates advice centres in Derry and Newry, dealing mainly with complaints from Irish nati ...
has linked to the Glenanne gang, a group comprising rogue elements of the RUC, UDR working alongside the UVF which carried out a series of sectarian attacks in the Mid-Ulster/South Armagh area in the 1970s.
According to the Barron Report (2003), a
Luger pistol used in Green's killing was linked six months later to the
Miami Showband killings
The Miami Showband killings (also called the Miami Showband massacre) was an attack on 31 July 1975 by the Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF), a loyalist paramilitary group. It took place on the A1 road at Buskhill in County Down, Northern Ireland. ...
, which left three band members dead. Both Robin Jackson and Robert Nairac were allegedly behind that attack, while Harris Boyle was blown up after the bomb he and Wesley Somerville (another UVF and Glenanne gang member) had placed in the band's minibus had gone off prematurely.
Martin Dillon
Martin Dillon (born 2 June 1949) is an Irish author, journalist, and broadcaster. He has won international acclaim for his investigative reporting and non-fiction works on The Troubles, including his bestselling trilogy, ''The Shankill Butcher ...
, in his book ''The Dirty War'', claims that Nairac was not involved in Green's killing, nor the Miami Showband attack. In his 2015 biography of Nairac, retired diplomat Alistair Kerr produced evidence that clears Nairac of involvement in both the Green killing and Miami Showband ambush.
Captain Robert Nairac was abducted and killed in 1977 by the IRA. On 7 April 1977, the
South Armagh Republican Action Force
The South Armagh Republican Action Force shortened simply to the Republican Action Force for a small number of attacks in Belfast was an Irish republican paramilitary group that was active from September 1975 to April 1977 during the Troubles in ...
claimed responsibility for shooting dead Protestant man Hugh Clarke at Tullymacreeve near
Forkill
Forkhill or Forkill ( , ; ) is a small village and civil parish in south County Armagh, Northern Ireland. It is within the Ring of Gullion and in the 2011 Census it had a recorded population of 498. It lies within the former barony of Orior Up ...
, County Armagh. The book ''Lost Lives'' says that the IRA shot Clarke. It adds: "the IRA claimed Hugh Clarke was involved in the killing of IRA member John Francis Green. On the night of the Green killing, he had been at the house where the IRA man's body was found".
[McKittrick, David. ''Lost Lives''. Mainstream Publishing, 1999. p.713]
On 9 January 2005, in Castleblayney, over 800 people participated in a march and unveiling of a memorial at Keady Cross to commemorate the 30th anniversary of the killing of Green.
See also
*
Robert Nairac
Captain Robert Laurence Nairac (31 August 1948 – 15 May 1977) was a British Army officer in the Grenadier Guards who was abducted from a pub in Dromintee, south County Armagh, during an undercover operation and killed by the Provisional Irish ...
*
Glenanne gang
The Glenanne gang or Glenanne group was a secret informal alliance of Ulster loyalists who carried out shooting and bombing attacks against Catholics and Irish nationalists in the 1970s, during the Troubles.
*
Robin Jackson
Robert John Jackson (27 September 1948 – 30 May 1998), also known as The Jackal, was a Northern Irish loyalist paramilitary and part-time soldier. He was a senior officer in the Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF) during the period of viole ...
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Green, John Francis
1946 births
1975 deaths
Deaths by firearm in the Republic of Ireland
Escapees from British detention
Irish republicans
People from Lurgan
People killed by the Ulster Volunteer Force
Provisional Irish Republican Army members
Republicans imprisoned during the Northern Ireland conflict
Terrorism deaths in Ireland