Sunday Life
King Rat's murder machine

AN angry Billy Wright put aside his gospel preaching and set about turning the mid-Ulster brigade into a ruthless terror machine.

Former associates say Wright - who was to be dubbed King Rat in the Press - was initially alarmed at the state of the UVF in Portadown when he re-joined the group in 1986.

"There were too many people lining their own nests....the leadership had had its day," said one.

"But things changed once Billy got going.

"He had the ability to organise and get things moving."

By 1988, Wright had completely re-organised and restructured the mid-Ulster brigade.

In came a younger, more militant leadership, under his control.

And in 1989, the UVF unleashed the full force of its terror campaign that was to last a total of seven years.

In 1996, reflecting on the UVF campaign in mid-Ulster, Billy Wright said: "There is not a death I regret. Every single one of them people, with a few exceptions, were directly or indirectly involved in murder.

"We were taking on the IRA and giving them a headache, and I think that's what made mid-Ulster stand out."

But in his foreword to The Billy Boy, Tim Pat Coogan remarks: "That self-applied gloss on his own activities would hardly comfort the families of the innocent Catholics who died in the murder triangle.

"To them, the name of Billy Wright is synonomous with anti-Christ."

In March 1993, Wright's brigade killed three IRA men and a fourth man in attack at Boyle's Bar in Cappagh.

Wright regarded it as his unit's most successful operation.

The three IRA men died when UVF gunmen opened fired on their car, which had pulled up outside the pub.

The fourth man, Thomas Armstrong, was killed when a gunman shot through an open window of the pub.

The three republicans - John Quinn, Dwayne O'Donnell and Malcolm Nugent – were going to the bar after having watched a local Gaelic football match.

The UVF claimed the attack as a huge success against the IRA while local people suspected security force collusion.

In fact it appears the gunmen had been preparing an attack on the bar, when the car and its occupants stopped outside at around 10.30 pm.

Instead of continuing with the original attack, the UVF gunmen turned on the car, killing three of its occupants and wounding a fourth.

And despite claims that Wright himself was present at Cappagh, there is not a shred of evidence that confirms this.

On the contrary, there are at four eyewitness who have testified to Wright's presence at a family function almost 60 miles away.

To Wright's brigade, taking the war to the IRA included attacking their families.

In January 1992, the UVF shot dead Kevin McKearney, 32, as he worked in the family's butcher shop in Moy, Co. Tyrone.

The dead man's 69-year-old uncle, Jack McKearney, was fatally wounded in the attack, and died the following month.

UVF sources said the family had been a target because of its 'IRA connections'. Two of Kevin McKearney's brothers, Sean and Patrick Oliver (Padraig) McKearney, died whilst on 'IRA active service' in 1974 and 1987.

Padraig McKearney was one of eight members of the IRA shot dead by members of the British Army's SAS Regiment at Loughgall, Co. Armagh, in May 1987.

Later the same year, Kevin McKearney's father-in-law, Charlie Fox, 63, and his mother-in-law, Teresa Fox were also shot dead by the UVF at their home just outside Moy.

A loyalist source in mid-Ulster said the concerted action taken against the McKearney family was part of the strategy of "taking the war to the front door of the republicans".

He said: "The message we were sending out to the IRA was quite clear: if were can't get you, then we will get you're nearest and dearest. We hit them where it hurt them most, their own families.

"In the early 1990s, the IRA in east Tyrone began to hurt. They were now experiencing the same pain as they had inflicted on the Protestant community for years and they didn't like a taste of their own medicine."

Tim Pat Coogan describes Wright as a ruthless man, saying in the book's foreword:

"My own abiding memory of him is of the partially blanked out figure in the famous Channel 4 interview in which he defended the killing of a Catholic widow's son.

"The lady in question, he said, might be innocent herself of any IRA involvement, indeed, so might her son, but the widow would certainly know the names and addresses of a number of IRA activists or sympathisers who were likely to kill loyalists, and her crime was that she did not pass these on to the authorities.

"That interview will be a valuable piece of the history of our times one day."