Reavey and O'Dowd killings

Reavey and O'Dowd killings
Part of the Troubles
Whitecross Ballydougan
Location	Whitecross and Ballydougan, County Armagh, Northern Ireland
Date	4 January 1976 18:10 and 18:20 (GMT)
Attack type	Mass shooting, familicide
Deaths	6
Injured	1
Perpetrators	Ulster Volunteer Force and Special Patrol Group members

The Reavey and O'Dowd killings were two coordinated gun attacks on 4 January 1976 in County Armagh, Northern Ireland. Six Catholic civilians died after members of the Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF), an Ulster loyalist paramilitary group, broke into their homes and shot them. Three members of the Reavey family were shot at their home in Whitecross and four members of the O'Dowd family were shot at their home in Ballydougan.^[1] Two of the Reaveys and three of the O'Dowds were killed outright, with the third Reavey victim dying of brain haemorrhage almost a month later.

The shootings were part of a string of attacks on Catholics and Irish nationalists by the "Glenanne gang"; an alliance of loyalist militants, rogue British soldiers and Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) police officers. Billy McCaughey, an officer from the Special Patrol Group, admitted taking part and accused another officer of involvement.^[2] His colleague John Weir said those involved included a British soldier, two police officers and an alleged police agent: Robin 'the Jackal' Jackson.

The next day, IRA gunmen shot dead ten Protestant civilians in the Kingsmill massacre. This was claimed as retaliation for the Reavey and O'Dowd shootings, and was the climax of a string of tit-for-tat killings in the area during the mid-1970s.