Gerard Davison (c. 1967 – 5 May 2015) was a commander of the
Provisional IRA
The Irish Republican Army (IRA; ), also known as the Provisional Irish Republican Army, and informally as the Provos, was an Irish republicanism, Irish republican paramilitary organisation that sought to end British rule in Northern Ireland, fa ...
. He was shot and killed on 5 May 2015.
One of the first operations he was involved in was shooting dead
IPLO Belfast Brigade commander
Sammy Ward during the same
Night of the Long Knives in Belfast.
Davison was questioned about the murder of
Robert McCartney in January 2005. He was released without charge.
Davison had been a community worker in the working class Markets area of Belfast.
Death
On 5 May 2015 around 09:00, Davison was shot numerous times at Welsh Street in the Markets area of south Belfast.
While police do not know who killed him,
Kevin McGuigan
Kevin () is the anglicized form of the Irish masculine given name (; mga, Caoimhghín ; sga, Cóemgein ; Latinized as ). It is composed of "dear; noble"; Old Irish and ("birth"; Old Irish ).
The variant ''Kevan'' is anglicized from , an ...
, a former subordinate of Davison's, was named as the chief suspect after he was also shot dead, reportedly by members of the Provisional IRA, on 12 August 2015.
On the evening of the killing, ''
The Guardian
''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers ''The Observer'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the Gu ...
''’s
Henry McDonald reported: “Davison is the most senior pro-peace process republican to have been killed since the IRA ceasefire of 1997. Security sources said it was highly unlikely that any Ulster loyalist group was behind the murders, adding that the killers may instead have come from within the nationalist community, possibly from people who had a longstanding grudge against the victim.”
Following his arrest in
Fuengirola in August 2021, it was revealed
Gerry ‘The Monk’ Hutch was to be questioned in relation to a weapon used in Davison's murder.
References
External links
*http://sluggerotoole.com/2015/08/25/tanaiste-this-is-an-insidious-threat-to-northern-irelands-future-as-a-healthy-stable-democracy-and-therefore-a-threat-to-the-whole-of-this-island/
*http://sluggerotoole.com/2015/08/22/members-of-pira-carried-out-their-own-investigation-into-the-davison-killing/
*http://www.irishtimes.com/news/politics/provisional-ira-may-have-left-stage-but-not-theatre-1.2324978
*http://www.rte.ie/news/2015/0820/722541-kevin-mcguigan-belfast/
{{DEFAULTSORT:Davison, Gerard
1960s births
2015 deaths
2015 in Northern Ireland
2015 murders in the United Kingdom
Deaths by firearm in Northern Ireland
Paramilitaries from Belfast
People murdered in Belfast
Provisional Irish Republican Army members
Unsolved murders in the United Kingdom