Martin O'Hagan

Owen Martin O'Hagan (23 June 1950 – 28 September 2001) was an Irish investigative journalist from Lurgan, Northern Ireland. After leaving the Official Irish Republican Army (Official IRA) and serving time in prison, he began a 20-year journalism career, during which he reported on paramilitary activity in Northern Ireland before being murdered in September 2001.

Born in Lurgan to Catholic and republican parents, several members of his family became prominent in paramilitary activities and politics. After returning to Lurgan from West Germany, where his father had worked for the British Army, he left school to work at his family's television repair shop. He soon became involved in both the Official Sinn Féin (which, after renouncing paramilitary activity, evolved into the Workers' Party) and the Official IRA. He was arrested and questioned over various crimes, including the murder of a police officer and a soldier, and was eventually sentenced for firearms offences in 1973.

After serving five years in Long Kesh prison, O'Hagan began a journalism career with ''Fortnight'' and the ''Sunday World''. He reported on violent and drug-related crimes committed by paramilitaries, like Robin Jackson, and worked with the Channel 4 programme '' Dispatches'' on alleged killings by security forces and Loyalists. He was abducted in 1989 by members of the Provisional IRA, and angered Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF) leader Billy Wright after reporting on his activities.

While Wright was killed in prison in 1997, threats continued to be made against O'Hagan by members of the new Loyalist Volunteer Force (LVF), which Wright had founded. On 28 September 2001, while walking home from the pub with his wife, O'Hagan was shot from a moving car and died at the scene. The chief suspects were members of the LVF, but no one has yet been sentenced for the crime. Trials were held against five men in the late 2000s and early 2010s, but the cases soon collapsed and one suspect was dismissed as a witness. Security forces have been accused of covering for O'Hagan's murderers, with accusations of direct police involvement in the killing. O'Hagan was the only journalist killed while working during The Troubles, and the last killed in the United Kingdom before the death of Lyra McKee in 2019.

Early life and family

O'Hagan was born in Lurgan in the north-east of County Armagh in 1950, the oldest of six children. Both his parents were from Lurgan, but O'Hagan spent a large period of his childhood in British military bases across West Germany due to his father's career with the British Army. His grandfather had also served in the military, being evacuated from Dunkirk. When O'Hagan was four his family returned to Lurgan, where he attended school and his father ran a television repair shop. Following his O Levels, he left education and began working at his father's shop. His parents soon separated, and his father left for London.

His family had a history of Irish republicanism: his uncle was J. B. O'Hagan, who escaped from Mountjoy Prison in 1973, and his cousin was Sinn Féin politician Dara O'Hagan. The family were Catholic. His brother, Rory O'Hagan, was convicted in the 1970s after an Official Irish Republican Army (Official IRA) shootout with the Gardaí in County Cork.

Official IRA membership

As a teenager, O'Hagan joined the Official Sinn Féin (later the Workers' Party), and made friends with then-general secretary Máirín de Burca, with whom he pelted Richard Nixon's car with eggs during a 1970 visit to Dublin. He was fined £2 for the incident and let go. His mother had insisted he live in the Irish capital for a while to escape the political troubles of Lurgan, but this appears to have backfired.

While his membership of the Official IRA was known publicly, alleged key details remained practically unknown until the publication of a 2002 book entitled ''Milestones in Murder'', by ''Sunday World'' reporter Hugh Jordan. The details were summarised in a November 2002 article by Barrie Penrose in ''The Spectator''. Back home from Dublin, O'Hagan had joined the Lurgan unit of the Official IRA, enjoying their socialist-republican policies and military wing. He soon became the "adjutant" of the group. In 1971, a few years after The Troubles began, O'Hagan was one of many republican suspects who was interned at the paramilitary detention centre at Long Kesh (also known as "The Maze").

On 15 December 1972, Police Constable George Chambers and his colleagues were driving through Lurgan's Kilwilkie estate after delivering Christmas presents to the house of an injured child. While there, they noticed a stolen Ford Cortina and suspecting it to be booby-trapped began evacuating the area. O'Hagan and his active service unit were hid in a flat nearby, from which they planned to rob a van later that day. Upon noticing the police, the group left the flat and attacked. The group fired semiautomatic guns towards the police, with Chambers being shot. O'Hagan allegedly then stood over his injured body and fired bullets until he had died. Following this, he shot another in the mouth before running away down an alley.

In May 1973, O'Hagan and his men were arrested on suspicion of the crimes. 19-year-old Gerald Duff admitted his role in the murder and was given a life sentence. The unit's commander, James Shanks, was also jailed. Both named O'Hagan as Chambers' killer in signed statements, and other group members confirmed the matter. While being interrogated O'Hagan remained silent, and was never charged with the murder. Later that year, he was arrested after a shooting in a Lurgan bar, where a Protestant man named William Houston was shot in the leg by O'Hagan's group. He was released again, but caught by a British Army patrol transporting an Armalite rifle and an M1 carbine across Lurgan. He was charged with the attempted murder of Private Ian Matterson of the Royal Regiment of Fusiliers, but the charge was dropped. However, he was found guilty of firearms offences and was sentenced to another seven years at Long Kesh.

While serving this sentence, he slowly began to turn away from his paramilitary past. He soon began studying sociology with the Open University and later the University of Ulster. He was released from prison in 1978.

Journalism career

After he was released from prison, O'Hagan returned to north Armagh and began reporting on clashes between loyalist and republican paramilitaries. While his journalism career began in the late 1970s, he was involved with local paramilitary activities until the early 1980s, being a suspect in the armed robberies of a Lurgan post office and a shop. In 1982, he was given an unpaid position with the left-wing Irish periodical ''Fortnight''. Then-editor Andy Pollak described him as "full of enthusiasm and hugely committed", stating he had "a courage bordering on recklessness. He'd go and get the stories other people were afraid to touch". He continued writing for ''Fortnight'' throughout the 1980s, becoming assistant editor underneath Pollak.

O'Hagan soon began doing freelance work for ''The Irish Times'', and in 1987 he joined the Belfast office of the Irish tabloid ''Sunday World'', managed by Jim Campbell at the time. The paper reported on the sectarian violence of the Troubles, with a specific focus on the crimes of Robin Jackson (known as "The Jackal"), an Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF) leader who had been involved in various brutal killings. In 1984, Campbell was shot by UVF members after revealing information on an assassination.

In the late 1980s, O'Hagan was a key source for the Channel 4 '' Dispatches'' documentary ''The Committee'', which aired in 1991. The show concerned the Ulster Loyalist Central Co-ordinating Committee, a group of Loyalists and security force members who allegedly carried out sectarian killings. Both the Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) and mainstream paramilitaries denied the existence of the committee. The show led to a series of libel cases and prosecutions, with Channel 4 being fined £75,000 for failing to inform the RUC about allegations within the show. O'Hagan was accused of receiving £5,000 for his part in the programme. In 2000, he appeared at London's High Court during one of the libel cases, where he stated "I have always tried to be squeaky clean because people will always try to cast this up in my face". The programme was later turned into a book by Sean McPhilemy.

National Union of Journalists

O'Hagan served as joint Belfast secretary of the National Union of Journalists, having a focus on contracts and bullying within the workplace. In 1999, he campaigned for Ed Moloney regarding the handing over of vital information, and gave evidence on behalf of Sean McPhilemy in his libel case against the ''Sunday Times''.

IRA abduction

Despite his republican background, O'Hagan was abducted in September 1989 by the Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA) after his name had appeared in the diary of a RUC officer who had been murdered by the IRA earlier that year. He had been invited to south Armagh under the guise of an interview, but was then bound by members of the South Armagh Brigade. While in their possession, he underwent an interrogation with the IRA's Internal Security Unit (known as the "Nutting Squad"), and allegedly spent two nights with a hood placed over his head. He was eventually released after convincing them he was not a police agent. The abduction was covered in ''Rebel Hearts'', a book by O'Hagan's former friend and journalist Kevin Toolis.

Later years

O'Hagan's investigating continued after his abduction. In 1991, he reported that Margaret Perry, a young woman from Portadown had been murdered by the IRA and buried in a shallow grave across the border in the Republic of Ireland. Her body was found the next year, but the IRA denied involvement. It was subsequently revealed that her murderer and his accomplices were working for British military intelligence and the RUC

In the 1990s, he gained the attention of Billy Wright, who had become leader of the UVF Mid-Ulster Brigade and later formed the Loyalist Volunteer Force (LVF). While Wright's group called themselves the "Bratpack", O'Hagan renamed them the "Ratpack" and nicknamed Wright "King Rat". He began reporting on the murders, drug deals, and other crimes that happened under his watch. In 1992, the Belfast offices of the ''Sunday World'' were bombed by the UVF: O'Hagan was not present during the bombing, instead being lured into another trap and beaten up at the Maze. After the bombing, reporter Jim McDowell was called to the UVF headquarters and made to deliver a personal threat to O'Hagan from Wright: "If anything happens to Billy Wright or his family, he will visit the same tenfold on Martin O'Hagan and his family". Due to the threats, O'Hagan was moved by the ''Sunday World'' to Dublin in November of that year, and then moved again to County Cork following loyalist death threats made against him. His wife and daughters remained in Lurgan.

O'Hagan continued working for the newspaper, and soon moved back to Lurgan in 1994. While the situation was more peaceful now, threats continued to be made against O'Hagan's life.

In the final years of his life, O'Hagan continued reporting on paramilitaries and crime, publishing stories about the actions of neo-Nazi group Combat 18 regarding Lurgan solicitor Rosemary Nelson and the supposed ethnic cleansing of Portadown. He interviewed Christopher "Crip" McWilliams, a member of the Irish National Liberation Army and one of the killers of Billy Wright, which angered loyalists, before separately publishing an article on McWilliams apparently stalking a girl.

While he often engaged in investigative journalism and serious stories, he was largely seen as a tabloid writer, with his colleague Jim McDowell saying "All he wanted was to be a hack". O'Hagan's reporting was often supported by insider information, such as former loyalist activist Barrie Bradbury, whose life was threatened several times by paramilitaries. Bradbury later claimed to know the identity of O'Hagan's killer and had informed the ''Sunday Business Post''.

Personal life

O'Hagan was married to Marie (), a Protestant woman who he met at the Carnegie Inn (better known as "Father Joes" or "Fa' Joes") in Lurgan. As one of the few "mixed" pubs in the town, the Catholic/Protestant couple would visit the pub often, including on the night of his murder. They had three daughters together, Cara, Niamh, and Tina.

While he had earlier republican ties, O'Hagan was later seen as being unsectarian, with Toolis describing O'Hagan's attempts to drink at a loyalist bar on the night preceding The Twelfth. He was an atheist and a Marxist.

Assassination

O'Hagan had expressed concerns that he was being followed by members of the LVF, who he had angered by reporting their crimes. A week prior to his death, he had been intimidated by a familiar loyalist living in Lurgan, who told him "You have been clocked walking down here".

A year prior, O'Hagan had bought a new house at Westfield Gardens, near the loyalist Mourneview estate where his mother-in-law lived.

On 28 September 2001, O'Hagan and his wife Marie went for their weekly drink at The Central Bar, popularly known as Fa' Joe's pub, on Lurgan's Market Street, arriving there at around 8pm. Two hours later, they began to walk home, taking a different route than their normal one. At 10:30pm, while walking down Westfield Gardens and near the Mourneview estate, a silver Subaru Impreza parked outside a neighbour's house began to slowly move forwards. A gunman leaned out the driver's window and shot towards the couple. Marie reported that O'Hagan had called out "It's Mackers" as he saw the shooter, suggesting that he knew who his killers were. O'Hagan pushed his wife into their neighbour's hedge, while he took three bullets in the back. Following the impact, he told his wife to phone an ambulance, but he died before she returned from making the call. A silver Ford Orion used by the shooters to escape was later found burned out on the Mourneview estate. Police suggested the Orion may have been left as a decoy.

Investigation

Police stated that their chief suspects were members of the LVF and associates of Billy Wright. They confirmed the existence of two key suspects, including the "Mackers" whom O'Hagan had recognised. The gun used to kill him had supposedly been used before in a feud murder, brought to Lurgan from Dungannon in County Tyrone, with Susan McKay suggesting the killer was a member of Billy Wright's original Ratpack. The weapon was confirmed to have been used to kill Grahame Marks in April 2001 in Tandragee, another killing attributed to the LVF.

O'Hagan's murder was later claimed by members of the LVF, who often operated as the Red Hand Defenders

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