One of the more infamous killings of the Troubles is back in the news. A new search has begun for the body of Capt Robert Nairac, from the BBC:
An area of farmland in County Louth is being examined for the remains of Captain Robert Nairac, who was abducted and murdered by the IRA while working undercover.
It is the first search for his remains since he was shot and secretly buried in May 1977.
The search has been organised by the Independent Commission for the Location of Victims’ Remains (ICLVR).
It said it has “sufficient credible information” to begin a search of private land in the Faughart area near Dundalk.
Speaking at a press conference on Monday morning before the dig, the lead investigator, Jon Hill, said said he was “hopeful” that the search could be successful.
“It has been analysed, we have gone through the information with a fine tooth comb to make sure it is worthy of getting to this stage and it is more than worthy, so credible is a good description,” he said.
Capt Nairac, 29, who was from Gloucestershire, was abducted from a pub at Dromintee in South Armagh.
He was then taken across the Irish border to Flurry Bridge, where he was beaten and shot dead.
The Nairac affair has fascinated people for nearly 50 years. There have been rumours that he was involved in the Glenane Gang as well as various atrocities like the Dublin and Monaghan bombs and the Miami Showband massacre. His Wikipedia page has full details of the various allegations as well as details on his death:
On the evening of 14 May 1977, Nairac drove alone to The Three Steps pub in Dromintee, a village in south County Armagh. He is said to have told regulars of the pub that he was Danny McErlaine, a motor mechanic and member of the Official IRA from the Irish Republican Ardoyne area in North Belfast. The real McErlaine, on the run since 1974, was ultimately killed by the Provisional IRA in June 1978 after stealing arms from the organisation.[12] Witnesses say that Nairac got up and sang a republican folk song, “The Broad Black Brimmer”, with the band who were playing that night. At around 11.45 p.m., he was abducted, following a struggle in the pub’s car park and taken across the border into the Republic of Ireland to a field in the Ravensdale Woods in the north of County Louth. Following a violent interrogation, during which Nairac was allegedly punched, kicked, pistol-whipped and hit with a wooden post, he was shot dead in a field.[13][14] He did not admit to his true identity. Terry McCormick, one of Nairac’s abductors, posed as a priest in order to try to elicit information by way of Nairac’s confession. Nairac’s last words according to McCormick were: “Bless me, Father, for I have sinned”.[15] Claims that his body was disposed of by being put through a meat grinder have been dismissed as a myth.[16]
So he could have been a terrorist mastermind, or equally, he could have been a delusional fantasist. Thinking you could fool the people of South Armagh, who don’t trust anyone whose family have not been buried in the local graveyard for 300 years, and even then, they are cagey, is a delusion of the highest order.
I suspect it will be one of those occasions when truth and myth become intertwined, and we will never get the full story.
I help to manage Slugger by taking care of the site as well as running our live events. My background is in business, marketing and IT. My politics tend towards middle-of-the-road pragmatism, I am not a member of any political party. Oddly for a member of the Slugger team, I am not that interested in daily politics, preferring to write about big ideas in society. When not stuck in front of a screen, I am a parkrun Run Director.
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