The Troubles: Ireland's Ordeal 1966–1995 and the Search for Peace

by Tim Pat Coogan

The inquiry was prompted by the killing of Loughlin Maginn, on 25 August 1989. He was shot by the UDA as he sat in his home watching television. The UDA announced that he had been a Provo, but his family claimed, correctly, that he had been the innocent victim of a sectarian assassination. Stung, the UDA attempted to prove their case by publishing a leaked, top-secret security file. It was but the first of a flood of such documents which the UDA unleashed. All had clearly been supplied either by sources within the RUC or by one of the various British intelligence agencies milling around in the north’s murky underworld. Some in fact came from the army. The documents massively reinforced the claims of Catholic spokesmen who averred that the RUC were supplying information to Loyalist paramilitaries to enable them to kill Catholics. Dublin, understanding full well the implications of this disclosure, communicated its extreme displeasure to London, using the growing leverage provided by the intergovernment conference set up by the Anglo-Irish Agreement. But the UDA proceeded to rub salt into the wounds by circulating still more files and photographs to the media. Pictures of alleged IRA men given to the UDA by the army, the RUC and British intelligence were openly displayed in Loyalist Belfast.