John McKeague
John McKeague (died 29 January 1982) was an Ulster Loyalist figure.
McKeague joined the Free Presbyterian Church, led by Ian Paisley. He also supported the Ulster Protestant Volunteers.[1] Later, he joined Tara, an evangelical Protestant group which called for the outlawing of Roman Catholicism in Northern Ireland and called on members to undertake weapons training. He later became the group's deputy leader.
In 1969, McKeague founded the Shankill Defence Association (SDA), to defend the Shankill Road from Catholic rioters at the start of The Troubles in Northern Ireland. Its primary role in the Northern Ireland riots of August 1969 was to organise Protestants to attack Catholic areas.[2] In November 1969, McKeague was cleared of a charge of conspiracy to cause explosions.[3]
McKeague stood as an independent Unionist in Belfast North in the 1970 UK general election, but polled only 0.75% of the vote. He also began producing Loyalist News.
In 1971, the SDA merged with similar Protestant groups elsewhere to form the Ulster Defence Association. Following a dispute, in 1972, McKeague left and founded the Red Hand Commandos, which rapidly became an integral part of the Ulster Volunteer Force.[1] Following various attacks by his paramilitary organisation,
His mother, Isabella McKeague, was killed on 8 May 1971 by a Loyalist group. She died in a fire which followed an incendiary bomb attack on the shop below her flat in Albertbridge Road, Belfast.[citation needed] On 6 October 1975, a Catholic customer was killed and his sister severely injured when McKeague's shop was bombed by the IRA.
McKeague was interned without trial in 1973.[citation needed]
Some observers, including Henry McDonald in The Observer, have claimed that McKeague was a paedophile and that British intelligence was able to use this fact to turn him into an informer.[4]
McKeague became a leading figure in the Ulster Loyalist Central Coordinating Committee, and within it strongly advocated Ulster nationalism. With John McClure, he contacted Ruairí Ó Brádaigh and Joe Cahill of Sinn Féin and initiated talks in an attempt to find a common platform for an independent Northern Ireland. This collapsed after Conor Cruise O'Brien discovered and revealed the activity.
With the majority of the Loyalist Central Coordinating Committee reluctant to advocate the unpopular policy of Ulster nationalism, McKeague helped establish the Ulster Independence Party, then in 1979 became deputy leader of the Ulster Independence Association.
On 29 January 1982, he was shot dead at his shop on the Albertbridge Road, Belfast by the Irish National Liberation Army. [5]
