John Francis Green

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John Francis Green
Mullyash, Castleblayney, County Monaghan, Republic of Ireland
AllegianceProvisional Irish Republican Army
Years of service1969–1975
RankStaff Captain and Intelligence Officer
UnitNorth Armagh Brigade
ConflictThe Troubles

John Francis Green (18 December 1946

Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF).[3][4] According to Intelligence Corps member Fred Holroyd, Special Reconnaissance Unit officer Robert Nairac was involved in Green's killing.[5][6] Green's was one of the 87 killings attributed by the Pat Finucane Centre to the group of Ulster loyalist paramilitaries, Ulster Defence Regiment soldiers and Royal Ulster Constabulary officers known as the Glenanne gang.[7]
No one was ever prosecuted for the killing.

Provisional IRA

Green was born in

Long Kesh internment camp.[1] On 9 September 1973, Green escaped from Long Kesh disguised as a priest.[4] During a visit with his brother, 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.[8]

Killing

Following his escape, Green lived in the

Ulster loyalist gunmen from the UVF Mid-Ulster Brigade kicked down the front door and shot Green six times in the head at close range, killing him instantly.[10][11][1] To the Ulster Volunteer Force in mid-Ulster, Green was a high-profile target. According to journalist Peter Taylor, the killers left behind some bullets in the shape of the letters UVF.[4] The UVF claimed responsibility for the killing in the June 1975 edition of its magazine Combat.[10]
Green's killing occurred during an IRA ceasefire, which had been declared the previous month.

Allegations

It was claimed by

Yorkshire Television 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.[5] 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.[3] Holroyd also told the Garda Síochána 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, had Green placed under surveillance.[12] 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.[13]

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 [IRA] truce with the British Government 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.[14]

Aftermath

A post-mortem revealed that Green had been shot six times in the head at close range, the bullets all having entered from the front.[15] At the time of his death, Green was married and the father of three children.[3]

After his killing, the Gardaí found Green's car, a

Official IRA, 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.[16]

Green's killing was one of 87 which the Pat Finucane Centre 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.[17]

According to the Barron Report (2003), a

Luger pistol used in Green's killing was linked six months later to the Miami Showband killings, which left three band members dead.[18] Both Robin Jackson[19] 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.[3] Martin Dillon, in his book The Dirty War, claims that Nairac was not involved in Green's killing, nor the Miami Showband attack.[20]
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

Forkill, County Armagh.[21] 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".[22]

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.[23]

See also

References

  1. ^ a b c "IRA Vol John Francis Green remembered in Castleblayney". An Phoblacht. 17 January 2008. Archived from the original on 29 August 2008. Retrieved 27 March 2020.
  2. ^ The Barron Report (2003): The murder of John Francis Green, p.1
  3. ^ a b c d e f An Phoblacht Republican News, The Killing of John Francis Green, by Laura Friel, 6 January 2000, retrieved 05-02-20
  4. ^ a b c d Taylor, Peter, Loyalists, 1999, London p.143
  5. ^ a b Dillon, The Dirty War, p.172
  6. ISBN 0-9542946-0-2
    p.158
  7. ^ Collusion in the South Armagh/Mid Ulster Area in the mid-1970s. "Collusion in the South Armagh / Mid Ulster Area in the mid-1970's". Archived from the original on 26 April 2011. Retrieved 18 April 2011.. Retrieved 15-12-10
  8. ^ Tim Pat Coogan, The IRA, p.405
  9. ^ Sean O'Callaghan, The Informer, p.80
  10. ^ a b Houses of the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Justice, Equality, Defence, and Women's Rights, Interim Report on the Report of the Independent Commission of Inquiry into the Dublin and Monaghan Bombings, December 2003, retrieved on 22-10-09
  11. ^ Dillon, The Dirty War, p.173
  12. ^ The Barron Report (2003): The murder of John Francis Green. p.20. Retrieved 31-01-11
  13. ^ The Barron Report (2003): the murder of John Francis Green. pp.1–20
  14. ^ Taylor, p.143
  15. ^ The Barron Report (2003): The murder of John Francis Green, p.4
  16. ^ The Barron Report (2003): The murder of John Francis Green, pp.2–3, 9
  17. ^ Collusion in the South Armagh/Mid Ulster Area in the mid-1970s
  18. ^ The Barron Report (2003)
  19. ^ Kevin Dowling (4 June 1998). "Day of 'The Jackal' has finally drawn to a close". The Irish Independent. Retrieved 27 March 2020.
  20. ^ Dillon, The Dirty War. p.174
  21. ^ Sutton Index of Deaths: 1977. Conflict Archive on the Internet (CAIN)
  22. ^ McKittrick, David. Lost Lives. Mainstream Publishing, 1999. p.713
  23. ^ "Hundreds honour John Francis Green on 30th anniversary". An Phoblacht. 13 January 2005. Retrieved 27 March 2020.
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