Roy Garland is the author of the biography of Gusty Spence, a founding member of the modern era UVF. After decades of violence, Spence embraced the peace process. In this article Roy Garland writes about some of the unlikely relationships which he saw blossom between former Loyalist and Republican paramilitaries, including Gusty Spence and Billy McCaughey (ex-RUC, ex-Tara and a member of the Glenanne Gang). The article also gives some new insights into William McGrath, the ‘housefather’ at Kincora Boys’ Home and his time in prison. Roy Garland knew McGrath in the 1960s and 1970s, and was an early Kincora whistle blower.
I have come across remarkable stories of friendship between Loyalists and Republicans. Gusty Spence introduced me to Jim Lynch and his wife Norma in the 1990s. Jim was a senior member of the Cavan/Monaghan IRA but had renounced violence. Cardinal Tomas O’Fiaich befriended Gusty in prison and introduced Gusty to Jim Lynch and his wife Norma. Gusty met Jim, his wife Norman and his sister Eileen, who was a nun. I brought all three to an Orange Festival in Belfast’s Windsor Park in 1995. There I introduced Jim to Rev Martin Smyth, which he greatly appreciated. When Jim died in 1996, Gusty and I attended his funeral service at St Michael’s Catholic Church in Cootehill and we then gathered at the graveside where I was asked if Gusty would say a few words. He agreed and gave an impromptu oration – the only Loyalist known to have done so for a former IRA man.
The Independent records some of what Gusty Spence told mourners, ‘Jim Lynch and I were friends…although not wealthy Jim was wealthy in his friends and in his love of his country.’[1]
Gusty also said, ‘it meant a great deal to know him, and I learnt a lot from his friendship,’ as he was ‘a kindred spirit’. Gusty quoted Laurence Binyon’s lament for lost soldiers, ‘For the Fallen’: Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn/ At the going down of the sun and in the morning/ We will remember them.
Jim Lynch had long ceased IRA activity and engaged in bringing Protestant children from deprived parts of Belfast’s Shankill area to summer camps near Cootehill in the Irish Republic where they played with Catholic children. Jim Lynch attended one or two meetings that I addressed and was very helpful to me there.
I first met Loyalist Billy McCaughey at the Glencree Centre for Peace and Reconciliation in County Wicklow. Ben Forde, an RUC colleague had met Billy who had shared some of his experiences and talked about their shared faith. Billy was then associated with the Free Presbyterian Church and his father was in the Faith Mission so that Billy grew up in a devout Christian home. Billy’s militancy had been intense as he was among the first RUC on the scene after ten Protestant workmen were massacred by the IRA at Kingsmill. Billy had been in Tara and knew the Tara leader who he had thought was fulfilling a necessary role but was unsure so avoided being seen in his company but told me that he was concerned about stories about William McGrath who led Tara and said:
‘It annoyed me so much that on Christmas day 1971 after dinner, I phoned Willy (McGrath) in Greenwood Avenue. I said, “Willy I know it’s Christmas Day but there’s something I need to talk to you about, but I could see you after Christmas.” He said, “Well come on up now” so I headed up. About 3 o’clock on Christmas Day I was sitting in thon wee side room.[1] He was asked, “What’s the bother?” Billy said, ‘Well somebody…raised questions as to your sexual orientation.” [McGrath] told me a story about how this [senior] Orangeman was opposed to him trying to arm the Orange Order and wasn’t up for the fight.
In fact, it was not his orientation but the abuse of children and young people that annoyed Loyalists. Later McCaughey met McGrath in prison and told him, ‘Well, Willy it looks as if I was right back then.’ He began another plausible story and then changed the subject. McCaughey said UVF leaders wanted a more inclusive society, but Billy thought this largely confined to Belfast’s Shankill area. In rural areas, it was irrelevant. Many preferred to attack a republican pub or in retaliatory shootings.
Later to my utter surprise I learned that Billy McCaughey had contacted Frank McArdle, a former Official Republican, against the odds. A Council Officer asked Frank if McCaughey should be given his phone number. This brought strenuous efforts to dissuade him and to this end one said, ‘Oh no, no you don’t talk to McCaughey, he’s a murderer, you don’t talk to him,’ another said, ‘Oh God no, you can’t meet him!’ Billy was notorious for his militancy as he was among the first RUC on the scene at Kingsmill when the IRA murdered 10 Protestant workmen, in the worst atrocity he had encountered, ‘in human suffering.’ [3] Yet Frank insisted that no one would tell him who he could or could not speak with and met McCaughey and continued to meet until Billy’s untimely death on the 8th. February 2006.
They had kept in touch weekly or every few weeks until Billy died. Frank had expected Billy to arrive with a “heavy squad’ but he arrived alone. They spent an hour and a half talking and Frank said it was ‘the best hour and a half’s discussion I had with anybody’. Given Billy’s notoriety this was truly remarkable. Frank was been an Official IRA veteran whereas Billy had been in Tara and the UVF, but they met regularly and spoke openly with each other. Frank was quiet and unassuming but showed great courage in meeting Billy but sadly Frank passed away on the 3rd February 2022 after years of struggle with cancer through which he remained cheerful until the end. He met my youngest daughter a nurse and kept in touch with her until Frank’s death. I first met Frank at the Fellowship of Messines Project at the Unemployed Centre then in Lower Donegall Street, led by Harry Donaghy, where Loyalists, Unionists, Republicans, and dissidents met despite difficulties. Billy had been in Tara and knew that the Belfast UVF leadership was less sectarian but he said:
‘Roy what you have to appreciate, is that my involvement with the UVF was simply in the context of “doing jobs” as they call it. Wherever there were operations, collecting guns or moving guns, I was in. When I went to prison I was an officer of the DUP in my area. My politics were DUP since I joined the Ulster Young Unionists about 1967.’
McCaughey had become involved with the mid-Ulster UVF after his RUC membership ended. He found it hard to believe that McGrath was a sexual predator but did not know if this were true but avoided being seen with him, until he could be sure. Another former Loyalist prisoner told me he had thrown bowls of cereal over McGrath’s head in prison but was later almost persuaded to join Tara after hearing him speak at a Bible study in prison. Republicans, heads covered in pillowcases, attacked McGrath but it was Loyalist Billy Mitchell, who prevented him getting a terrible beating although he knew he was ‘praying against him every night in his cell’. Progressive Loyalists and Republican helped end the conflict and in reaching the Good Friday Agreement of 1998 but men of courage are still needed.
Billy McCaughey and Frank McAuley had previously had very different aims but against the odds they became the best of friends until Billy’s untimely death on the 8th February 2006. Billy and Frank spoke openly with each other despite strong opposition but refused to be dictated to. Both men had shown courage.
[1] The Independent 2 November 1996.
[2] This was a smallish cloakroom of the large hallway at his home in Greenwood Avenue.
[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Billy_McCaughey Accessed 15 April 2022.
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