Robert McConnell (loyalist)

Robert McConnell
Robert McConnell
Birth name	Robert William McConnell
Born	c. 1944 Northern Ireland
Died	5 April 1976 (aged 31–32) Tullyvallen, Newtownhamilton, County Armagh
Allegiance	Ulster Defence Regiment Ulster Volunteer Force (allegedly)
Rank	Corporal
Unit	2nd Battalion UDR Mid-Ulster Brigade
Conflict	The Troubles

Robert William McConnell (c. 1944 – 5 April 1976), was an Ulster loyalist paramilitary who allegedly carried out or was an accomplice to a number of sectarian attacks and killings, although he never faced any charges or convictions.^[1] McConnell served part-time as a corporal in the 2nd Battalion Ulster Defence Regiment (UDR), and was a suspected member of the Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF).^[2][3][4]

In 1993, Yorkshire Television broadcast a programme The Hidden Hand: the Forgotten Massacre, and the narrator named McConnell as a member of one of the two UVF bomb teams that perpetrated three car bomb attacks in Dublin on 17 May 1974, which killed 26 people.^[5] The programme also linked him to British military intelligence and Captain Robert Nairac, stating that McConnell and key figures from the bombing unit were controlled before and after the bombings by Nairac.^[6] RUC Special Patrol Group (SPG) officer John Weir alleged that McConnell had been part of the UVF unit that shot leading Provisional IRA man John Francis Green to death in January 1975. Weir also alleged that McConnell had been one of the gunmen in the Reavey family shootings, as well as having had a key role in the bomb and gun attack against Donnelly's Bar the previous month.^[1] These were part of a series of sectarian attacks and killings that were carried out by the group of loyalist extremists known as the Glenanne gang, of which McConnell was a member. This gang comprised rogue elements of the Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC), the SPG, Ulster Defence Regiment (UDR), and the UVF's Mid-Ulster Brigade, which from 1975 to the early 1990s was commanded by Robin "the Jackal" Jackson. Jackson was also implicated by the Hidden Hand in the Dublin and Monaghan bombings, and he was reportedly involved in the Green assassination.^[1][5]

McConnell was shot to death outside his home by the IRA.^[7] Weir maintained in his affidavit that was published in the Barron Report (which was the findings of the official investigation into the 1974 car bombings commissioned by Irish Supreme Court Justice Henry Barron), that McConnell had been set up by British military intelligence. According to Weir, whose information came from a republican informer, now deceased, military intelligence passed on vital information about McConnell to the IRA, who then ordered his killing.^[1]