Dominic McGlinchey

Geography of McGlinchey's career: Northern Ireland. Geography of McGlinchey's career: The Republic of Ireland.

In August 1971 the British army launched Operation Demetrius, which involved the mass arrest and of 342 people suspected of being involved with the IRA.[23] McGlinchey was one of those interned as a result,[24][note 2] interrupting his fledgeling career as a car mechanic.[18] He spent five days being interrogated in Shackleton Barracks;[note 3] like his fellow internees, he had no access to either family or legal representation.[22] He was then transferred to Magilligan Prison, and later Long Kesh.[14][25] There he met IRA veterans from the Border campaign, some of whom ran classes in left-wing politics—based on the writings of Marx and James Connolly—as well as military tactics. One man imprisoned with McGlinchey later recalled him as "a big kid out of his depth" who possessed only a limited knowledge of republican history and ideology.[22] Released in either May or June 1972, his experience appears to have been the catalyst for him to join the physical force movement.[14][note 4] that Coming from a deeply republican area—the failed Border Campaign still a fresh memory[27]—his background gave him "first-class" republican credentials.[14] For those intending to follow such a path, there was still a choice to be had between joining the Official or the Provisional IRAs;[note 5] McGlinchey chose neither. Instead, he joined with Francis Hughes—a childhood friend[29]—Ian Milne and Tom McElwee, and together they formed their own informal unit.[24] McGlinchey later explained their rationale for doing so during what he called "that colourful period": "You meet fellows who now say they had a political philosophy but they had not. You just went out and did it. When I was doing that at the start. I had no idea I was reacting against the State."[30]

The choice of McGlinchey and Hughes to join the Provisionals[31] was probably, Dillon speculates, based on its local image. Particularly in the clubs and bars McGlinchey frequented, "young Provisionals quickly acquired a hero-worship status", and the movement was rooted in the same romantic nationalism that he had grown up with.[30][note 6] Having joined the IRA's South Derry Brigade, he almost immediately went on the run.[32] Often going south for days or weeks at a time,[33] he was able to avoid immediate re-internment.[32] His training, McGlinchey claimed, was rudimentary, later saying "I just picked it up as I went along".[34] Although he occasionally attended IRA training camps with Hughes—who showed an innate aptitude for marksmanship—McGlinchey's skills were in organising and logistics.[30]

McGlinchey was arrested in 1973 for possession of guns, for which he received 18 months imprisonment.[24][note 7] Back in Long Kesh, he recommenced his studies in politics and history. This time the class leaders were not old Border campaigners, but relatively young Provisionals.[35] During the period of his incarceration, the external leadership were in secret negotiations with the British government and was considering a ceasefire. McGlinchey did not approve, telling Hughes that he felt that there was an element within the Army Council that was insufficiently committed to the armed struggle.[35]

Towards the end of his term, McGlinchey fell out with the IRA's prison leadership, particularly with the ex-Vice President of Sinn Féin, Dáithí Ó Conaill,[24] and the Dublin leadership generally,[note 15] whom he called "armchair generals". As McGlinchey saw it, they were "sitting in the relative security of Dublin while he and Hughes were out shooting up the countryside of South Derry".[61] The confrontation almost turned physical. Dillon's source told him that McGlinchey "was not a man to back down—that was his nature. There was a rumour that he told O'Connell [Dáithí Ó Conaill] he was nothing but a fucking schoolteacher and an armchair general". This was ill-advised, says the source, as the other IRA prisoners in Portlaoise admired Ó Conaill as a "hero and intellectual".[62]

As a result, McGlinchey and the Provisional IRA parted company, and he joined the INLA.[24] Whose decision this was, remains unclear. The IRA leadership said they expelled McGlinchey from the republican wing for indiscipline;[64] McGlinchey, in turn, claimed the Provisionals "had become too soft".[65] A volunteer who was inside with McGlinchey at the time later recalled how vague the information was: "They say that when he was in Portlaoise that he left the Provos and went to the INLA. The Provos say that he couldn't take orders, he wanted to be the big guy, so they threw him out, court-martialled him...some would say there was other stuff involved."[66][note 16] While imprisoned, McGlinchey had begun to develop his political understanding of Irish Republicanism and political philosophy, reading among other, writings by James Connolly,[21] Frantz Fanon, Amílcar Cabral, Che Guevara[67] and the Belgian Marxist Ernst Mandel. The prisoners frequently indulged in political discussions, which expanded McGlinchey's political understanding. The development of McGlinchey's own political radicalism[21] may also have contributed to a decision of his to leave the IRA.[68] Whatever its origins, contemporaries believed his joining the INLA was firmly encouraged by his wife.[69]

McGlinchey maintained regular contact with the outside,[note 17] and was particularly keen to recruit the last INLA chief of staff—but who had since left the group—back into the organisation.[31] This individual—whose identity remains unknown—seriously considered the offer, but ultimately declined.[31] The reporter Gavin Esler suggests that McGlinchey may have taken a number of disaffected Provisionals from the border region with him to the INLA.[71][note 18]

Following McGlinchey's criticism of the Derry Brigade's lack of activity, they devised a plan that met with his approval.[79] The target was the Droppin Well bar in Ballykelly, where, McGlinchey was advised, soldiers from the army base regularly drank. McGlinchey instructed them to proceed with the bombing[64] and to ensure maximum casualties. He knew, but ignored, the near-inevitability of civilian deaths.[97] On 6 December 1982[98] 17 people—11 soldiers of the Cheshire Regiment[99] and six civilians—were killed after a timebomb exploded in the middle of a disco. This brought the roof of the pub in.[24] To McGlinchey, they—whether Protestant or Catholic—were fraternising with the enemy.[100] Four of the dead were women;[73] the INLA's subsequent claim of responsibility described them and the other injured women as "consorts".[97] Although McGlinchey later claimed that the bar owner had received multiple warnings against serving soldiers, it is unlikely that any such warnings were given.[100]

Following the Droppin Well bombing, McGlinchey became a "hate figure":[100] DUP MP Willie McRea called for the destruction of "this insane devilish brat McGlinchey" in the House of Commons, calling him a "well-known mass-murderer",[24] while Taoiseach Garret FitzGerald told the Oireachtas that the bombing was a "blasphemous sectarian act". McGlinchey, already a "prime target" for British intelligence, was now called the "most wanted man in Ireland".[64] The British Government had been attempting to persuade that of the Republic to extradite republicans to face justice in the North for many years, with no success. The Ballykelly bombing encouraged the Irish court to reconsider its position:[101] the following day, Ireland's Supreme Court ordered McGlinchey to be extradited to Belfast in response to an earlier RUC request for McGlinchey to be returned to them to face trial for the murder of Hester McMullan.[note 29] This was despite the INLA being still a legal organisation at that point and McGlinchey himself[103]—having already absconded from bail while in the north[104]—being on the run and unobtainable.[103][note 30] The court's decision was a dramatic[106] break with precedent, and a controversial one, as the Republic objected to the use of Diplock courts in the north; it had rejected 48 similar applications from the north since 1970;[107] this was the first such extradition since the creation of the Irish Free State in 1922.[108][note 31] McGlinchey, in absentia, fought the decision.[109] Although he rejected accusations of involvement in the murder,[48] he claimed—in the words of the Extradition Act of 1965—that the Toomebridge operation had been "a political offence or an offence connected with a political offence". Through his solicitors, McGlinchey presented evidence of his IRA active service at the time in the form of wanted posters, charge sheets and articles naming him in the Ballymena Guardian. This was not accepted, and McGinchley re-approached his challenge, this time basing it on the clause of the Act which prevented extradition if there were grounds for believing that, following transfer the individual would then in any case still be prosecuted for political offences.[114] In a two-hour hearing,[115] Chief Justice Tom O'Higgins[note 32] rejected this claim also. He recorded the court's opinion that "modern terrorist violence...is often the antithesis of what could reasonably be regarded as political, either in itself or in its connections".[117] Higgins also declared that whether the victim of the alleged political offence—in McGlinchey's case, Hester —was killed or not was irrelevant to the question; the important point, he stressed, was that she was a civilian.[118] "An elderly grandmother riddled with bullets", he continued, was in no way what "reasonable civilised people would regard as political activity".[119] Public interest in McGlinchey's extradition subsided following the judgement, as, notes the jurist Alpha Connelly, he "did not oblige the Irish authorities by presenting himself to them for the purpose of extradition pursuant to the Supreme Court judgment".[120]

McGlinchey only ever crossed the border into Northern Ireland when an operation required it, which made it harder for the security services to maintain effective surveillance.[64][note 33] In spite of secret surveillance south of the border,[36][122] the Special Reconnaissance Unit[note 34] had difficulty monitoring McGlinchey, argues the journalist Peter Taylor. As a result, they "did the next best thing and latched on to an INLA associate", Seamus Grew.[123] Grew was a close friend of Mary McGlinchey.[69] By tailing Grew north of the border, the SRU hoped to be led to McGlinchey.[124] The RUC's intelligence arm, E4A, believing him to be in Armagh, thought they knew the route he would be taking back to the south.[86] Six days after the Droppin Well bombing, Grew and another INLA member Roderick "Roddy" Carroll, were shot dead at an RUC checkpoint while driving through Mullacreevie.[86] McGlinchey—the intended target[99]—had been seen getting into their car in the south by The Det surveillance. He was believed to be bringing a bag of guns[36][125] into the north.[73] This was not the case;[126][note 35] the handbrake was on,[122] and neither were Grew or Carroll armed.[125] It seems probable that he had been in the vehicle a few minutes earlier, but had alighted before reaching the roadblock,[130] with what the Belfast priest and peace activist Fra Raymond Murray has called an "instinctive intuition".[131] Dillon posits that the army had a shoot-to-kill policy with regard to McGlinchey, believing him to be always heavily armed and unlikely to surrender without a fight.[79]

The deaths of Grew and Carroll reinforced McGlinchey's conviction that there was a mole in the organisation with the sole intention of "setting up McGlinchey".[132] Six months after Grew and Carroll were killed, McGlinchey believed he had found the source of E4A's information:[133] Eric Dale, he believed, had provided the RUC with the information they required to locate Grew and Carroll.[24][note 36]

On the evening of 3 May 1983, McGlinchey personally led the gang who kidnapped Dale in front of his girlfriend, Claire McMahon, in Monaghan. She later said that the men originally said they wanted to speak to Dale "about guns or something that was missing".[135] McGlinchey's role in the operation was to keep McMahon calm in the front room while other gang members interrogated Dale in the hallway.[135] Mary McGlinchey was part of this team.[130][note 37] McMahon later said that the only time she saw her partner again he was lying face-down on the floor surrounded by six people with guns.[135] Dillon describes McGlinchey's appearance that night:

McGlinchey's balaclava had slits for his eyes and stretched below his chin; he wore a combat jacket, and a shoulder holster resting on his chest contained a .44 magnum revolver. His right hand was positioned near the gun butt and his left held the holster.[136]

McGlinchey told Claire that Dale would be returned to her shortly, and then emptied McMahon's car boot and bundled Dale into it. McGlinchey told her that if she had not heard from Dale by morning, she was to make her way to Culloville for information; McMahon, realising that the gang were going to steal her car as well, asked how she was expected to travel from Monaghan to South Armagh without a vehicle. She was not to see Dale again; his body was found four days later outside Killean. An INLA statement claimed that he had been executed for—among other things—trying to establish the whereabouts of "an alleged INLA man wanted on both sides of the border". This was an indirect reference to McGlinchey himself.[137][note 38] As the Dale case illustrates, McGlinchey occasionally tortured his victims, often "with the aid of instruments such as a red-hot poker", says Coogan,[139] often using Tom McCartan, a "quick-tempered and violent man", for such work.[140]

McGlinchey's efforts in counterintelligence did not stand in the way of the armed campaign. In May 1983 both McGlincheys, with two other men,[141] took part in a drive by gun attack on a Cookstown checkpoint, him with a machine gun and her using a pistol.[24] A police constable reservist, Colin Carson, was killed and fire was exchanged between those in the van and the RUC in a sangar.[141] McGlinchey's fingerprints were later found in the van.[24] The operation, said the UPI at the time, was claimed by the IRA's Tyrone Brigade as their responsibility,[142] although it is generally considered to have been carried out by McGlinchey's group.[141]

Money and weapons were essential for the INLA's campaign, and McGlinchey—by now accompanied by Dessie O'Hare[134]—organised a number of bank and Securicor robberies, on one occasion stealing £100,000 in a single raid. This allowed tentative plans to buy arms from the United States to be put into effect, although, in the event, the plan came to nothing.[143][note 39] Another two robberies in Cork brought the group £300,000 between them.[38] Another favourite fundraising technique was fraud, one case of which was meant to have netted the group £140,000 in stolen bankers' orders. However, Éamon McMahon from South Armagh, whose job it was to cash the orders, paid nothing.[144] McMahon was an associate of Patrick Mackin—with whom McGlinchey was involved in a personal feud[24]—and, to resolve the issue, both men agreed to meet Mary McGlinchey in the Imperial Hotel in Dundalk. Trusting her, suggest Holland and McDonald, "was a fatal mistake":[144][note 40] Mary had lured them there for her husband to kill.[24][note 41]

British intelligence also continued its attempts to capture McGlinchey. One extreme tactic,[144] allegedly used in October 1983, was described by The Guardian as "badly botched".[146] A fake tour operator called Caruso, under cover of an address in London's Albemarle Street, wrote to Tony and Margaret Hayde in September informing them that they had won third-prize in a competition, an all-expenses-paid week in Torremilenos. The Haydes were founder members of the IRSP, and The Times reported that "the couple, who admit to having met Dominic McGlinchey, allegedly INLA chief of staff and Ireland's most wanted man, say they were offered immediate cash and the promise of a further £10,000 in return for information".[147][note 42]

By the end of 1983, relations with the Derry IRA had become fraught. The IRA had publicly condemned an INLA no-warning carbomb, and a number of IRA men had equally publicly left the organisation for the INLA. Matters came to a head in early December when an INLA man was accused of stealing an IRA gun, to which he retaliated by threatening senior Derry republicans. McGuinness, in an attempt to forestall a feud, contacted McGlinchey—both men had stayed in contact after McGlinchey had left—for assistance. McGlinchey met his man in Dundalk and instructed him to return the gun, in exchange for assurances as to the volunteer's safety.[149] In an attempt to restore the peace, in a December 1983 interview with the Starry Plough, McGlinchey supported Sinn Féin's decision to increase its political involvement in the Republic and called for greater cooperation in the north between the two groups.[150]

INLA violence continued alongside fundraising ventures and personal vendettas, although often unsuccessfully. For example, two operations had been planned for 13 August 1983. An RUC reservist was to be killed at a checkpoint in Markethill, while in Dungannon the police station was to be shot up. Both attempts were failures. At Markethill the unit failed to kill any police, while in Dungannon the INLA unit was ambushed and two volunteers shot dead.[151] At the debriefing of the surviving volunteers, an attendee later recalled, McGlinchey "went mad and called us all stupid cunts".[151] McGlinchey was also concerned about the loyalty of certain members of his Belfast Brigade, a number of whom were summoned to the Ardee farmhouse in late October 1983.[152] Also kidnapped and brought to Ardee at the same time was ex-INLA member Gerard "Sparky" Barkley, who had been a close friend of Kirkpatrick. Although Barkley had publicly left the organisation, McGlinchey suspected him to be robbing banks with INLA weapons but not paying over anything to his old comrades as would be expected. Barkley swore that he was now merely an "ODC", or ordinary decent criminal.[152] He was not believed. Following interrogation, Barkley was shot on McGlinchey's orders by either Paul "Bonanza" McCann[24][152] or Mary McGlinchey.[134][note 43]

The Pentecostal Church in Darkley, attacked by the INLA in 1983

On 21 November 1983 two armed men walked into the Pentecostal Church in Darkley, South Armagh. They opened fire on the congregation, who were singing "Are You Washed in the Blood of the Lamb?",[155] and shot a number of worshippers, three of whom died with many more injured. A previously unknown group calling itself the Catholic Reaction Force soon claimed responsibility for the killings,[156] which it called a "token retaliation".[7][note 44] The RUC confirmed that weaponry used in previous INLA operations had been used.[156] The INLA, however, denied involvement and condemned the attack,[note 45] although McGlinchey later acknowledged the presence of an INLA volunteer in the group to whom, McGlinchey admitted, he had loaned a Ruger rifle.[159][note 46] McGlinchey expressed dismay at the attack[66] and seems to have been unaware it was to take place, but notwithstanding this, the political damage was done and his name was now linked firmly to violent sectarianism. The attack had been the idea of a Belfast INLA man as revenge for the death of his brother at the hands of loyalists; he told McGlinchey that he wanted weapons to target a known UVF man.[161]

McGlinchey quickly acted to put distance between himself and the Darkley massacre.[162] Referring to the reason for the attack he had originally been given, he claimed that the INLA man, following the death of his brother, involved "must have been unbalanced or something to have organised this killing".[68][note 47] In an interview with the IRSP's newspaper, The Starry Plough, he stated of the Darkley killings: "I condemn them. Those people were only hillbilly folk who had done no harm to anyone. They are in no way a legitimate target. These killings are contrary to republican socialism. They cannot be defended."[162] Coogan also suggests that the man who planned the attack was "clearly deranged".[165] The Irish anthropologist S. Bruce argues that McGlinchey's approach can "reasonably" be inferred to have been that "if Protestants get caught in the cross-fire, they deserve it".[166]

Darkley was yet another propaganda disaster for the INLA, and whether McGlinchey liked it or not, symbolised what it was best known for.[167] The murders heightened McGlinchey's profile further, and, argue Holland and McDonald, for much of 1983 "Ireland and Britain were gripped by 'Mad Dog' fever". McGlinchey—still on the run—was reportedly spotted all over the island.[162] McGlinchey's tactics for evading capture, the Gardaí later reported, included never staying in the one place too long and frequently disguising his appearance.[168][note 48] On one occasion, claimed The Guardian, his disguise was good enough to enable him to attend his sister's wedding "and that not even those standing in the church during the ceremony realised that he was there".[146]

Six days after the Darkley attack, McGlinchey gave an interview to the Sunday Tribune, conducted by its editor, Vincent Browne.[note 49] Browne said that the public had a right to know about McGlinchey,[169] and McGlinchey was keen to put his side of the story across, as by now the IRA had also condemned Darkley as purely sectarian.[note 50] He appears to have offered the BBC the opportunity to interview him first, but they declined. Browne and McGlinchey talked for four hours, only being interrupted for occasional refreshment.[173] Browne later annotated his notes of the interview, describing McGlinchey as speaking "with a soft Derry accent...for the most part, relaxed, composed and fairly articulate". Browne suggested that the term "Mad Dog" seemed misapplied to the man he interviewed[173] although also that "there is a coldness about him in relation to the consequences of his actions which is chilling". Browne realised that McGlinchey was not used to speaking with journalists, as he was "quite devoid of the caution and guile" Browne was usually met with by his subjects. McGlinchey may, Browne said, have been overly tired.[173] Conversely, Browne noted, the pressure of the situation may have sharpened McGlinchey's wits, for Browne wrote that McGlinchey soon "perked up" and became "unusually well able to carry the drift of an argument through several convolutions". Their conversation shifted from Irish politics to the global; this may have been deliberate on McGlinchey's part to distract from the Darkley attack and questions as to his own role in it.[173] Browne discussed McGlinchey's preferred tactics on an operation, asking, for example, whether McGlinchey ever saw the face of his victim:

Vincent Browne, who interviewed an on-the-run McGlinchey in 1983, photographed in 2008

Usually, for I like to get in close, to minimise the risk for myself. It's usually just a matter of who gets in first and by getting in close you put your man down first. It has worked for me down the years. I wouldn't be as good as they are [the security forces] shooting it out over distances because I don't get the opportunity for weapons and target training like they do. So I believe in getting in close'.[173]

The last time this had happened, added McGlinchey, was "the Cookstown job", referring to the death of Constable Carson in May that year. McGlinchey described how he "went up to the bunker outside the police station and just opened up on the policeman in the bunker".[174] One of the few times McGlinchey seemed uneasy in the interview, wrote Browne, was when he was asked about the children of McGlinchey's victims, to which he replied in generalities. He also became agitated, saying that he refused to be "blackmailed by the grief of children".[19] McGlinchey showed no remorse for his activities,[21] said Browne, only a "frightening indifference".[171] After the interview was published, the Gardaí visited the Tribune's offices[169] and studied it minutely to extract any clue as to his whereabouts.[171] In Britain, The Guardian newspaper described McGlinchey's availability for interviewing by anyone he wanted "embarrassing" for the Gardaí at a time when the police were under pressure to capture him.[172][note 51]

The manhunt for McGlinchey and his gang involved hundreds of soldiers and Gardaí,[175][171] while the media "followed their trail around the Republic in some awe".[176] A Gardaí patrol eventually discovered him accidentally[177] in Cork City on 2 December 1983. Far from being a police triumph, the encounter was "one of the more farcical incidents"[162] among what Dolan calls their "picaresque" manhunt.[21] Two Gardaí knocked on the door and, receiving no answer, attempted to force an entry.[162] McGlinchey−with Mary[178]−and comrades were covering them with their guns as the police entered.[162] A later report suggested that Mary had wanted to kill them, but her husband restrained her.[179] The republicans made them strip at gunpoint[162]—a tactic McGlinchey used a number of times in encounters with the Gardaí[180]—and tied them up. The officers took three hours to escape from their bonds, by which time McGlinchey and his gang had stolen a car and escaped[162] with the help of a local man.[181] McGlinchey's "humiliation" of the Gardaí, says Dillon, "energised" the manhunt.[182][note 52] It also, suggests Coogan, "inject[ed] something of a Robin Hood element" to republican propaganda, as well as—by making them "peel off" their uniforms—"adding a new definition to the tern 'peeler'".[184][note 53] The gang were armed with automatic assault rifles, pump-action shotguns and short arms.[179]

McGlinchey and his gang were eventually captured on his way to meet his children—on which account, he later said, he panicked when he was surrounded[186]—on St Patrick's Day 1984 in County Clare.[note 54] They holed himself up in the house of John Lyons, a musician; although Lyons was absent, his wife and children were at home, hostages for McGlinchey.[190][191] The Gardaí's Security Task Force[179]—numbering 40 men[168]—did not expect to be able to force his surrender, so they were accompanied by the Irish Army who were equipped with Uzi submachine guns.[192] As the police drove up to the house, McGlinchey opened fire on the leading vehicle from an upstairs room. Garda Chris Power was hit in the shoulder, and was forced to remain in the car for safety while the firefight took place, even though he was bleeding heavily.[179] Both sides exchanged shots,[192] until a priest was sent in to negotiate with McGlinchey[192] from the bottom of the stairs.[193] At 7:15 pm,[192] having been wounded,[17] and to safeguard Mrs Lyons,[191] and both their children—McGlinchey's were nearby,[190] in the care of a supporter[179]—he surrendered.[192][168] The priest, Father Timothy Tuohy, later told how McGlinchey and his gang wanted him to stay with them as they left the house, expressing fears that they would be assassinated if there were no witnesses.[193]

Having been the first republican to have been extradited from the south to the north, on 11 October 1985 he also became the first person to be re-extradited from the north back.[208] The then-leader of Sinn Féin, Gerry Adams, later joked in Fortnight magazine that the Catholic Church was insistent that "although reports that Mr McGlinchey was seen to move have been verified by many observers, his movements back and forth across the border do not meet the conditions used to describe a miracle".[209] McGlinchey was handed back to the Gardaí at the Killeen border crossing, and immediately re-arrested on charges relating to the Clare siege. As well as Gardaí Special Branch armed with Uzis,[197] McGlinchey was greeted by spectators with placards, note Holland and McDonald. Of these read céad míle fáilte, while another said "Welcome home, Daddy".[208] By this point, argues Coogan, "the pendulum of public opinion had swung back towards him considerably". His photograph had appeared in the news often enough for the "Mad Dog" image to appear a misnomer, and his wife and young children were photogenic.[186]

McGlinchey was convicted at the Special Criminal Court in March 1986 for firearms offences from two years earlier.[210] The presiding judge, Mr Justice MacMahon commented during his sentencing that "it was to his credit" that MvGlinchey had not fired on the Gardaí although having had many opportunities to do so.[186][note 61] McGlinchey was sent to Portlaoise for 10 years, where he became a model prisoner,[21] immersing himself in the study of constitutional[211] and extradition law,[134] on which he became expert.[21] As a result, he became an informal advisor to other prisoners[145] and was able to dismiss his barristers and prosecute his own appeals.[134][note 62] The Supreme Court advised McGlinchey to seek payment of the state aid paid to defence counsel as he was acting on his own behalf.[213] McGlinchey's appeals failed in Ireland and then also in the European Court of Human Rights.[117] He then appealed to the Supreme Court again, on the new grounds that the 1981 warrant from Belfast was flawed. Justice Declan Costello initially agreed, noting that the police officer upon whose oath it had been issued had failed to sign it as he should have. However, said Costello, there were sufficient safeguards in the extradition process to have allowed McGlinchey to have presented this evidence on an earlier occasion; he had not done so, and the appeal was therefore dismissed.[214] Dillon suggests that during this period of imprisonment, McGlinchey reconsidered the direction of his life, resolving to retire from military activity and become a family man.[215] On the outside, though, McGlinchey was beginning to be seen as a potential leader for a disaffected group of Provisionals from the East Tyrone Brigade.[note 63] McGlinchey, they knew, "had even less regard for the Adams leadership than the East Tyrone men".[217]

Mary McGlinchey—called "Mrs Mad Dog" by the ex-soldier and writer Ken Wharton[222][note 64]—may have continued to organise[223] her husband's operation while he was incarcerated, perhaps even running it.[224] Publicly, she appears to have distanced herself from political activity (notwithstanding, noted The Sunday Tribune, that "her window displayed a Sinn Féin election poster").[225][223] She probably to have supported the faction still controlled by her husband's man—"Jap" O'Reilly—in the INLA's faction feuding but not to the extent of playing a direct role.[226]

On 1 February 1987, at around 9:20 pm, at the family home in Dundalk, she was bathing their two children upstairs when two-balaclava-clad men[210] broke into through the back door[75] and ran upstairs. They fired at Mary McGlinchey with automatic weapons,[210] shooting her in the face.[215] Declan, the eldest child, escaped out of the house and raised the neighbours, who found Mary shot, with her head in the bath.[210] Regional newspaper The Argus later reported that the killing "caused shock waves in the town".[75]

RTÉ reported the next day that McGlinchey had been asleep in the ground floor block of Portlaoise's E-Wing—which housed, in part, "members and former members of the INLA"[227]—when prison authorities were informed of his wife's killing.[note 65] McGlinchey was awakened and moved to another section of the prison, where he was given the news. However, noted RTÉ, "the prison authorities refused to disclose what his reaction was", that being personal information. When asked whether his move had been because McGlinchey was considered to be in danger among other INLA men, the prison official said it was "prudent and in the best interests of everyone".[227] The McGlinchey children were taken into care by Brigid Makowski, who had previously been their legal guardian.[78] Mary's inquest was delayed three months as McGlinchey's counsel argued he had only been informed two days earlier and had not had sufficient time to instruct him.[229]

Holland and McDonald argue that "because [McGlinchey] was the personification of all that happened to the INLA from 1982 to early 1984, those who suffered under his reign blamed McGlinchey personally." Many people—including some republicans—wanted him dead.[208] She is known to have taken an active part in McGlinchey's activities; the RUC wished to question her in the matter of 20 deaths,[21] and had made enemies of her own, particularly by luring victims for her husband's execution squads.[210] The method of her murder also, says Dillon, "implied personal revenge".[215] With McGlinchey in enforced absence in Portlaoise,[21] it is likely that her killers took advantage of the general chaos of the on-going INLA feud to settle an old score.[210] Although it is unclear exactly what was requested and what was denied, Holland and McDonald state that McGlinchey applied for permission to attend her funeral.[note 66] This was refused by the Department of Justice on the grounds of the security risk.[231][note 67] McGlinchey was reported as being "devastated" by her death.[233] Although the Justice Department offered him the opportunity to hear a private service for his wife within the prison—with his children and close friend Bernadette Devlin McAliskey attending—McGlinchey refused, demanding he be allowed to the funeral itself.[234]

Mary may have been killed by the same gang that would later be responsible for McGlinchey's death,[24] part of a "long-running feud", suggested a group of Belfast journalists researching the conflict's mortality rate.[24] It may also have been over money.[21] Coogan suggests that her killers—who blamed her for the part she played in the deaths of McMahon and Mackin[144]—flew in from the United States the day before[235] and having shot her with borrowed guns, "were back on a plane to America the next day".[224] Both the Gardaí and the INLA judged it an IPLO operation, and within a few days the latter had assassinated one of that group.[236] The IRSP concurred, their spokesman Kevin Quillan saying in a radio interview the next day that they "could quite clearly state that we would lay the blame for this brutal murder at the door of the so-called IPLO, one of the factions of these dissident groupings", and further suggested that the IPLO received the assistance of British intelligence in targeting Mary McGlinchey.[237] However, her death appears to have been unconnected with it.[218] McGlinchey wanted to investigate Mary's death, but he was hampered by the fact that no-one was willing to discuss it with him while the feud was still on-going.[182] Her death also put an end to the on-going contact between the INLA and the disaffected elements of the East Tyrone Brigade who had contacted McGlinchey.[238] After their mother's death, Declan and Dominic lived with their maternal and paternal grandparents, in Toomebridge and Bellaghy respectively.[239]

Following his wife's death, McGlinchey released a statement from Portlaoise in which he denounced the INLA's feud and said that neither he nor Mary had had any dealings with the group since his incarceration begun. Therefore, he said, there was no reason for any organisation to play any part in her funeral.[240][note 68]

In October 1992 McGlinchey applied for temporary parole in order to see his children over the public holiday, but the request had been turned down on security reasons. Two months later he applied again, this time to spend five days over Christmas with them. This request was accepted.[241] McGlinchey was released for good in March the following year.[242] He had served seven of his 10-year sentence.[21][243] He announced his intention of refocussing the INLA's efforts on investigating the money laundering activities of the UVF[17] and its connections with Irish gangsterism.[75] Still politically hardline, he condemned the on-going Hume–Adams talks, as well as the Downing Street Declaration, which he considered a betrayal of the republicanism's ethos.[21]

Grave of Dominic, Mary and Máire McGlinchey in Bellaghy

McGlinchey was buried in Bellaghy. Around 60 mourners, mostly family, saw off his body from Drogheda before the journey north. McAliskey kissed the coffin, which was carried by her, Sean McGlinchey, Dominic junior and Father O'Daly, who had given McGlinchey the last rites on Hardman's Gardens. The hearse was accompanied by what the Gardaí described as a "low key" security operation. Their spokesman said "we did not wish to flood the scene with Gardaí or there would have been more of them than mourners".[15]

McGlinchey's funeral was held on 13 February 1994 in Bellaghy,[251] with no republican accoutrements.[263] There was no INLA colour party,[263] and only an Irish tricolor draped over the coffin.[264] Over 1,500 people attended[253] watched closely by 200 RUC.[265] Police armoured vans were held on the perimeter.[264] McGlinchey was buried alongside Mary and their young daughter Máire.[253][266] His coffin was carried from the McGlinchey family home to St Mary's Church[264] by pall-bearers who were swapped out from the crowd every 40-yards or so.[263] Martin McGuinness[258] was among them, as was Bernadette McAliskey and her daughter Róisín.[267][258][note 74] McGlinchey's sons carried the coffin for the final yards;[264] comments Keane, "Dominic and Declan McGlinchey have seen more than most because of the troubles in Northern Ireland".[134] The priest, Father Michael Flanagan, condemned what he called the media's glorification of McGlinchey's killing, telling the crowd "no-one deserved to die like that. There's a little bit of good in the worst of us and a little bit of bad in the best."[253] Dillon's anonymous Provisional source confirmed that McGuinness's presence at the funeral indicated the high-standing as a soldier in which the IRA held McGlinchey, despite its disapproval of his organisation.[269] McGlinchey's grave had a flagpole next to it from which a Tricolour flew after the burial.[265] His grave lies a short distance from that of Francis Hughes, who had died on hunger strike in May 1981.[258][note 75] Bernadette McAliskey gave the graveside oration, which effectively eulogised McGlinchey.[258] She condemned the recent press coverage which had accused McGlinchey of drug dealing and criminality and said of the journalists responsible that they were[263]

Curs and dogs. May every one of them rot in hell. They have taken away Dominic McGlinchey'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.[263]

Following this speech, some of the mourners turned on the observing press corps and shouted abuse, reported The Times.[264] A couple of months after the funeral, McAliskey later explained her thinking to The Guardian. Their reporter, David Sharrock, asked if her tirade had been intended to counteract the negative stories about McGlinchey that had recently appeared in the press.[270] McAliskey said

It's very difficult to conduct a conversation about a person who bore no resemblance in the media to the person I knew for 10 years. His thinking was just fundamentally democratic and to acknowledge that Dominic McGlinchey had an intellect was to acknowledge the reality of this conflict here. Republicanism is not simply anti-partitionist and confined to Ireland. It is a tradition of secular egalitarian democracy. So yes. Dominic was the finest republican of his generation. The rest of it I might take back...I don't even believe in hell.[270]

In the New Statesman the following month, the journalist and political activist Eamonn McCann—discussing Sinn Féin's "search for respectability"—considered the speech of his "old comrade" McAliskey,[note 76] which he said he had been "taken aback by the ferocity" of. However, said McCann, in context this was less surprising than should otherwise have been expected. The press coverage of McGlinchey's death, argued McCann, suggested that "the killing had been a good thing [and] the details of how he died were recounted with undisguised relish". The focus, he said, was on portraying McGlinchey was different from the brand of Irish republicanism that was increasingly becoming part of mainstream political discourse.[274]

McGlinchey's death did not stop the INLA's internal feuding,[256] and by this point, says Coogan, it had also turned to drug dealing and racketeering.[139] In 1996, another INLA chief of staff—Gino Gallagher—was also shot dead, probably by a rival faction. This led to a further bloody feud.[256] McGlinchey had "helped keep the INLA on the map after the hunger strike", says Davies,[177] and Holland and McDonald suggest that the INLA's fragmentation after his death indicates McGlinchey's importance to the organisation. They argued that he acted as "a makeshift bolt"; while he was alive, and particularly while he was operational, the bolt had held the component parts of the group together. But with his death, "that terror machine finally broke into disparate parts. The descent into chaos had begun."[286] Although the armed struggle continued, it was generally ineffectual. The INLA cast itself as defenders of the Catholic community and tried to take the war to Loyalism. However, over the next few years the group killed over 40 civilians and 10 of its own volunteers while accounting for only five loyalists.[66]

The scholar Arwel Ellis Owen has blamed McGlinchey for the INLA's subsequent descent into factionalism, which he argues was a direct result of McGlinchey's being on the run throughout his leadership. His enforced absence, Owen suggests, prevented him from taking day-to-day control.[90][note 80] This was particularly caused by McGlinchey's emasculation of the Army Council and collective decision-making processes; when he left, there was no-one to fill the vacuum his departure created.[177] The INLA's increased focus on internecine feuding also distracted them their political or strategic aims.[287] and McGlinchey has also been criticised for failing to support the political struggle waged by the IRSP. Their finances were consistently low or non-existent and they relied on the military wing to provide them with funds. Little was forthcoming, in spite of the INLA's numerous successful robberies. McGlinchey appears, therefore, to have had little interest in any form of struggle other than the military. This was despite, note Holland and McDonald, of concerns raised by seasoned INLA men such as Harry Flynn and Gerry Roche that socialist politics and activity was fundamental to the existence of both groups.[143][note 81] Despite McGlinchey's claim that his priority for the republican socialist movement to provide "political leadership on the class struggle in Ireland", argues the author Daniel Finn, politics "withered on the vine" under his command.[67] McGlinchey, commented the author Thomas G. Mitchell, "had minimal interest in the party. Instead, he wanted to ake the INLA the most ruthless and feared terrorist group in Northern Ireland."[289] Although McAliskey praised the memory of McGlinchey, in practical terms, suggest Holland and McDonald, his "effect on the organisation Mrs McAliskey once supported was negative", and his legacy should be seen as division and paranoia within the INLA, they suggest. [251] It is possible that, before he was killed, McGlinchey had come to regret leaving the IRA. One of their ex-volunteers told Dillon that had McGlinchey remained with the Provisionals, they "would have stood him down from active service. He'd probably still be alive and part of the peace process."[269] Alternatively, it has been suggested that McGlinchey had already been identified by elements within the IRA opposed to Sinn Féin's peace strategy as a potential future rallying point for dissidents.[254]

Dermot Finucane, brother of murdered Belfast solicitor Pat Finucane, later told the investigative author Kevin Toolis that the "Wanted" posters put up about McGlinchey and Hughes influenced him to join the IRA in 1978. Finucane told Toolis how "I remember seeing Dominic McGlinchey and Ian Milne and Francis Hughes 'Wanted' posters when they were on the run as the most wanted men in Ulster, and I remember mentally saying: 'That is what you want, you want to inflict so much damage on the enemy they want you badly'".[290] McGlinchey was commemorated in the INLA wing of the Maze Prison with a mural on a communal wall. McGlinchey is portrayed in a black beret and against a fiery background and a silhouetted hillside. The caption read "Comrade Dominic McGlinchey. Proudly remembered by the INLA POWs. Long Kesh".[291][note 82] Similarly, the scholar Paul K. Clare said that, while researching public opinion in Northern Ireland, he asked a group of young men in Turf Lodge "if there was any one individual who they admired more than anyone else. 'Mad Dog' McGlinchey" was their reply."[293][note 83] Such views, argues Clare, were "not so uncommon that they would be considered abnormal".[294]

The author Martin Dillon met McGlinchey in the mid-1980s and described him as "six feet tall, and lean, with a receding hairline. In his 30s, his slightly rounded face gave him the look of a much younger man."[16][note 84] Coogan also visited McGlinchey in Portlaoise and wrote that he appeared "tired, reduced by his past and by prison".[184] He had a tricolour tattoo on his left forearm.[146] The Gardaí later described McGlinchey as vain, and enjoying melodrama.[168] Edna O'Brien described him as "most reflective and at the same time most forthcoming".[295] She later told Marianne Heron of the Irish Independent that she had told McGlinchey "that she liked everything about him except what he was [and] he told her that his mother said the same thing".[295] O'Brien also denied ever having an affair with McGlinchey; she claimed later that, as a result of her research for a book, she had to refute questions as to whether she "had love affairs with republicans".[296][note 85] His reputation, suggests the writer Jonathan Stevenson, became that of "fabled killer",[254] while Coogan describes him as "a latter-day Ned Kelly",[278] as committed to republicanism as Frances Hughes[29] yet with far greater notoriety.[256] He was also, suggest Holland and McDonald, "probably the most famous and most charismatic INLA chief of staff since Séamus Costello".[208][289] Where Costello ruled by collective agreement, though, McGlinchey ruled by decree;[208] his tenure as INLA chief of staff has been summed up as "brutal, authoritarian, but nonetheless still relatively cohesive" by researcher Gary Ackerman.[219]

McGlinchey, at his own estimate, killed "around...30" people in his career, of whom all but one, he said, were members of the security forces;[174][note 86] the historian Keith Jeffrey has calculated that McGlinchey was responsible for 28 murders, 30 bombings and 11 armed robberies.[175] According to the journalist Nicholas Davies, his victims were "mainly officers of the RUC, the army and the UDR. He also murdered civilians."[36] Holland and McDonald suggest that during his tenure as Chief of Staff McGlinchey "held the organisation together" at a time when it was expected to implode.[14] McGlinchey, a contemporary said, "made his own luck",[59] and Davies described McGlinchey as "a fearless man who would take extraordinary risks", particularly in his tactic of close-quarters engagements.[36] The scholar C. M. Drake notes, however, that "where there is little protection for a human target...a close-quarter assassination is a simple option".[297]

After his death, an IRSP spokesman, Fra Halligan defended McGlinchey's lack of political idealism, pointing out that he "wouldn't have had any problem saying [so] to you".[66] For example, when Adams ideologically linked the republican campaign to the ANC's struggles in South Africa against Apartheid, McGlinchey is claimed to have said that, in rural nationalist areas "they don't know anything about Mandela but they see Brits in their fields and they don't like it".[298][299] McGlinchey summed up his own approach as being "to do what had to be done and don't think about it thereafter".[174] Although he was never completely unafraid, he said—"you need a certain amount of fear to keep you on edge"[20]—he believed in controlling his fear and that, ultimately, he had a stronger motivation to fight than his enemy.[20] He also claimed to take no pleasure in killing. During his interview with Vincent Browne, Browne asked him what his greatest regret was. After a pause, McGlinchey told him about a Protestant boy he had grown up with. The boy had joined the RUC and subsequently been killed by the IRA; "McGlinchey said he felt badly about that".[19]

The ex-volunteer who spoke to Dillon also discussed McGlinchey's approach to various aspects of his leadership. He commented, for example, with regard to McGlinchey's views on informers ("a bullet in the head—no messing"), drugs (not tolerated), civilian casualties ("he would just say it was war") and sectarianism ("he took the view that if they killed our people, we should strike back but he didn't spend his time going around saying "let's kill all the Prods").[300] He concludes that McGlinchey "was not a holy Joe, but his main targets were the British war machine".[129] A Gardaí source told The Times, "he lived by the gun and died by the gun. He was not a man who was going to die in his bed of old age".[233] McGlinchey saw himself similarly. In an interview with the Starry Plough, he commented—when asked what the effect of his death or capture would have—that "the movement will not end with me. I'm only one individual, not God."[286] He also refuted that he had ever, or ever would, become a legend, telling a journalist "I'm no Che Guevara, just an ordinary Irish republican socialist who is determined to strive for a free socialist Ireland".[168] O'Kane compared his and his wife's cooperation as having a "touch of Bonnie and Clyde" about them, she wrote.[145][179]

McGlinchey's falling out with the Provisionals in the late 1970s, commented an anonymous colleague, indicated that he could issue orders but was a very poor follower of them.[31][note 87] Other ex-comrades have since described him as "volatile and impulsive", and his approach to man-management as "if you're on the run you should be armed. If not, fuck off home."[31] Another called him a "cunning countryman [who] liked to manipulate others but did not like to be in overall responsibility".[31] His treatment of popular and previously loyal INLA men such as Barkley convinced many of those under him that he would brook no dissent or questioning of his orders. The result was bad news for the INLA's cohesion, as paranoia and fear became widespread. to the extent that, when attending Army Council meetings, say Holland and McDonald, some members would only go armed.[153] However, they also argue, it could never be said of McGlinchey, as it could of so many of his colleagues, that his struggle was motivated by personal gain: he was motivated solely by ideology.[286] One such fellow traveller of McGlinchey's later described the INLA leader thus:[100]

He wasn't the mad dog the media talked about. He was very focussed. People would listen when he talked. He had a grasp of international politics and often discussed the agendas of other revolutionary movements. He wanted to see the INLA as part of an international socialist brigade. He was also a hard man and when anyone stepped out of line—God help him or her.[100]

Christopher S. Morrison of the University of Wisconsin-Madison describes McGlinchey as earning "a personal reputation for sheer readiness to murder that no single republican figure of the Troubles has come close to challenging".[302] A lieutenant general in the British Army, Maurice Robert Johnston, later described McGlinchey as a "lunatic", and more of an enemy to the British government than Martin McGuinness. McGlinchey not only lacked McGuinness's restraint, said Johnston, but would "shoot his own mother and all the rest of it".[303] McGlinchey's "Mad Dog" nickname was given him by the security services[24][note 88]—the modern historian Ruán O'Donnell calls the term a "pejorative soubriquet"[305]—who considered him a "psycho".[66] Dillon suggests that, in reality, the army did not consider him a mad dog but a "committed terrorist who had proved...dangerous and unpredictable",[129] while the investigative journalist Mark Urban says McGlinchey had "driven the INLA into active and reasonably effective terrorism".[306] The former INLA Chief of Staff—who McGlinchey had failed to re-recruit in the late 1970s—later told how he was ultimately deterred when he considered the direction McGlinchey wanted to take the group in. Holland and Mcdonald tell how—the two men having shared a cell in Portlaoise for some time—the ex-chief considered McGlinchey to be "unpredictable", and that his involvement increased the likelihood of a bloodbath at some point.[31] A Garda who knew McGlinchey during his last term of imprisonment said that notwithstanding the urbane, academic facade McGlinchey adopted, he was still "a complete dictator" who wanted to dominate all around him.[134]

The label "Mad Dog", argue Holland and McDonald, is a misnomer: he was neither mad nor a dog. For example, they say, by the time of his death he was sufficiently well versed in the constitution—the result of his studies in Portlaoise—to cogently argue against the Downing Street Declaration, which was being negotiated shortly before he died.[286] Republicans tended to ignore the "Mad Dog" and "psycho" tags, which they deemed to part of what they believed to be a normal British propaganda campaign,[269][note 89] albeit, says the author Gene Kerrigan, "in a cartoon fashion, as a bogeyman".[308] Ackerman has argued that the fact McGlinchey was able to spend so long on the run demonstrates the level of support he enjoyed in the countryside.[309] Another of McGlinchey's Portlaoise companions argued that he was comparable to the hero of a previous generation of republicans, O'Donovan Rossa,[66] while the literary critic Richard Pine has called McGlinchey's career of violence part of the continuing republican theme, arguing that the "'religion of ecstasy' which carried Emmet, Pearse and Plunkett through the blood-sacrifice has also...sustained Terence McSwiney in 1920, the hunger-strikers in Long Kesh and sustain[ed] Dominic McGlinchey".[310] McCann argued that McGlinchey "wasn't way out of line with, and can't be cast from, the mainstream history of nationalist Ireland".[274]

At his last trial, McGlinchey's defence counsel argued that, like thousands of others of his generation, "but for the fact that he was born in the community of South Derry, it is highly unlikely that he would ever be before any court".[186] Holland and McDonald believed that McGlinchey would have known he would not meet with a peaceful death.[251] On one occasion he stated his belief that "I will be remembered for nothing. I have no illusions about myself. There is no glory or anything to this. The only people who will remember me will be my family and particularly my children."[286] It is possible that the June 1993 assassination attempt had brought out a fatalistic quality in him, for during one interview he commented on his nickname, saying "what do you do with a Mad Dog except put it down?".[66] Before his death, he told a local detective "you either hide or you go on living as long as you can".[253] Vincent Browne asked McGlinchey what he thought would happen to him eventually. McGlinchey answered:[311]

I will probably get shot. There is a good possibility of my not seeing the end of the struggle. I could be lucky but just because I have been set up by the media as the most wanted man in Ireland, I suppose that increases the chances of my getting done in. But I don't really give it a lot of thought, I always try to avoid being shot.[311]