“When it awarded him The George Cross, was Buckingham Palace aware that Captain Robert Nairac was named, in an official Ministry of Defence document, as having been ‘involved in the planning and execution of The Miami Showband murders’ or was the palace misled by the government?” - Stephen Travers
Robert Nairac was known by several different aliases, depending on the company he kept. To the republican community and the IRA, he was known as Danny McErlaine or ‘Danny Boy’ to the UDR the Ulster Defence Regiment which was a subset of the British Army he was known as Charlie McDonald. Loyalists consisted of a large number of the UDR’s membership which is an important point to note. To the Loyalists in Ardoyne, he was known as Charles Johnson. He is also known to have swapped between accents, again depending on who he was speaking with and whether he was on a phone call or speaking in person. After his death, in his Military quarters at Bessbrook underneath his bed, three different berets were found, a fawn beret of the elite British Army force the SAS, a feathered beret of the Argyll Highlanders who were a regular regiment of the British Army stationed in Northern Ireland as well as a black beret of the Provisional IRA. Between 1974 and his death in 1977 Nairac’s movements are shrouded in mystery. However, during that time period there have been allegations that not only was he part of some of the darkest atrocities of the Troubles in Northern Ireland, but that he led, managed and orchestrated many of them. One of the most notorious cases he is linked to is the Miami Showband Massacre in 1975 which was covered in last month’s column. He is said to be the man that spoke with the ‘educated English accent’ at the scene who directed the killings of the band members of behalf of the British Army. New information has recently been uncovered that seems to corroborate these allegations.
Nairac was born in Mauritius, then a British Crown colony, to an English mother and a father of French Mauritian origin. His mother, Barbara (née Dykes) was Anglican and his father, Maurice, a Catholic who worked as an eye surgeon. Nairac was the youngest of four children; he had two sisters and a brother. He had a devout Catholic upbringing which is thought to be why he was able to camouflage himself so well into the republican areas of Northern Ireland as a spy. He attended Oxford university and studied medieval as well as military history. He played rugby and was a trained boxer, receiving blues awards for his achievements in boxing whilst a student there. Nairac's first tour of duty in Northern Ireland was with No.1 Company, the Second Battalion of the Grenadier Guards. The Battalion was stationed in Belfast from the 5th of July 1973 to the 31st of October 1973. The Grenadiers were given responsibility first for the Protestant Shankill Road area and the predominantly Catholic Ardoyne area. This was a time of high tension and regular contact with paramilitaries. Ostensibly, the battalion's main objectives were to search for weapons and to find paramilitaries. Nairac was frequently involved in such activity on the streets of Belfast and was a community relations activist at the Ardoyne sports club. The battalion's tour was adjudged a success with 58 weapons, 9,000 rounds of ammunition and 693 lbs of explosives taken, and 104 men jailed. The battalion had no casualties and did not shoot anyone. After his tour ended, he stayed on as liaison officer for the replacement battalion, the 1st Battalion of the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders. On their first patrol, Nairac narrowly avoided the impact of the explosion of a car bomb on the Crumlin Road.
Rather than returning to his battalion, which was being transferred to Hong Kong, Nairac volunteered for military intelligence duties in Northern Ireland. Following the completion of several training courses, he returned to Northern Ireland in 1974, attached to 4 Field Survey Troop, Royal Engineers, one of the three subunits of a Special Duties unit known as 14 Intelligence Company (14 Int). Posted to South County Armagh, 4 Field Survey Troop was given the task of performing surveillance duties. Nairac was the liaison officer for the unit, the local British Army brigade and the Royal Ulster Constabulary. Nairac finished his tour with 14th Int in mid-1975 and returned to his regiment in London, having been promoted to Captain on the 4th of September 1975. Following a rise in violence culminating in the Kingsmill massacre, the British Army increased their presence in Northern Ireland, and Nairac accepted a post as a liaison officer. On his fourth tour, Nairac was a liaison officer in Bessbrook Mill. It was to be his 4th and final tour.
It was late in the evening in the ‘Three Steps’ pub in Dromintee, County Armagh. A stranger walks into the pub and gets talking to some locals at the bar. He says he is a member of the Provisional IRA in West Belfast. He gives his name as Danny McErlaine, says he is from Ardoyne, a strictly Republican area of Belfast and that he works as a car mechanic. He mingles with the locals, speaking in an impeccable Northern Ireland accents and at one point gets up on stage to sing known Republican song ‘The Broad Black Brimmer’ to an amused crowd. However, something is off. His story isn’t matching up and he starts to draw attention to himself from genuine members of the IRA. When the stranger left the pub at roughly 11:45pm he was followed out into the carpark by several members of the IRA who suspected him to be a spy. They did not know at this point that the stranger was Robert Nairac, however their suspicions were right. He was a spy and was collecting information for the British Government, as he routinely did. After, a short scuffle Nairac is bundled into a car and taken to a field close to the border of the Republic of Ireland. He is then tortured and beaten to within an inch of his life by the IRA man but does not give up his name. Terry McCormick one of the IRA men impersonates a priest in order to try and get Nairac to reveal information. He never does. Nairac’s last words to McCormick were ‘Forgive me Father for I have sinned.’, he is then shot in the back of the head by Liam Townson and buried.
Over the coming days the IRA men realise they have killed Captain Robert Nairac as there was a media frenzy for the missing British Army Intelligence officer. Terry McCormick fled to the USA and remained there for the rest of his life, never returning to Northern Ireland. Liam Townson is found by police. He names all the other men involved. Five men from the South Armagh area. Three of them – Gerard Fearon, 21, Thomas Morgan, 18, and Daniel O’Rourke, 33 -were charged with Nairac’s murder. Michael McCoy, 20, was charged with kidnapping, and Owen Rocks, 22, was accused of withholding information. Fearon and Morgan were convicted of Nairac’s murder. O’Rourke was acquitted but found guilty of manslaughter and jailed for ten years. McCoy was jailed for five years and Rocks for two. Morgan died in a road accident in 1987, a year after his release. Liam Townson is convicted of his Nairac’s murder by shooting him in the back of the head and serves the longest sentence. He serves 13 years in jail and is released in 1990, however he never revealed where the body of Nairac is buried. Nairac remains one of the infamous ‘Disappeared’ 19 people that vanished during the Troubles. Most notable of these vanished people are Nairac and Jean McConville. McConville’s body was found in 2003, however, Nairac’s body still remains missing. Fifteen of these bodies have been found however, four remain missing.
After Nairac’s death, he is alleged to have been involved in many terrible events during the Troubles as he mixed with the IRA and constantly fed information back to Loyalists as well as his British Army superiors. Leading to him being accused of taking part in the Dublin and Monaghan bombings in May 1974 as well as the Miami Showband Massacre in 1975 in which new evidence has come to light that seems to prove his guilt. A long battle for justice for three members of a popular Irish music group, Miami Showband, who were murdered during The Troubles in Northern Ireland received a huge boost in January 2020 with official confirmation that an undercover British Army soldier was involved.
Heavily redacted Ministry of Defence papers released to the lawyer for the family of one of the victims have confirmed the involvement of Captain Robert Nairac in the murder of three members of the Miami Showband, in July 1975. The documents back up the claims of survivors and family members, over many years, that British security force personnel were directly involved in the murders which sent shock waves across the island Ireland. The papers were released to solicitor Michael Flanigan, who represents the widow of one of the musicians who were murdered.
For over four decades, it has been suspected that the atrocity was carried out under the instructions of a British Army intelligence officer, Captain Robert Nairac. The redacted documents suggest that Nairac obtained equipment and uniforms for the killers and that he bore responsibility for the planning and execution of the attack. The band members were killed by members of the notorious Glenanne Gang, made up of loyalist paramilitaries and serving British police officers and soldiers under the direction of a man with an ‘educated English accent’ which we now know was Robert Nairac. Finally, there is proof of Nairac’s involvement and some closure for the victims. Stephen Travers a survivor of the attack said he was hugely disappointed to be proved right with the revelation that a British Army captain had planned the attack which saw three of his friends lose their lives, “This was a case of the British army being involved in the planning of an execution,” he said. The documents were released to the solicitor representing Varlie Andersen, widow of Fran O’Toole, who is taking legal action against the Ministry of Defence and the chief constable of the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI), “When I first saw it, I must have read each line at least 10 times, desperately searching for some reason to be sceptical. But the stark reality of his name on the page before me was both dreadfully sad and at the same time tremendously exciting,” said Travers.
Captain Robert Nairac has posthumously been awarded the Victoria Cross for the work he did for the British Government.