The Legacy of the Military Reaction Force

Undercover operations in Northern Ireland

The last few days have seen two decisions from Northern Ireland’s prosecution service linked to some of the murkiest episodes of the Troubles.

It was announced on Thursday that four soldiers will be prosecuted in relation to shootings by an undercover army unit, the Military Reaction Force (MRF) in Belfast in 1972.

Margaret Urwin’s 2012 study of the MRF and its successor units, Countergangs, has this account of one of the shootings, the killing of Patrick McVeigh.

Patrick Joseph McVeigh was indeed murdered on 12th May at the junction of Riverdale Park South and Finaghy Road North by members of the MRF who opened fire from a car with submachine guns on a group of vigilantes who were members of CESA [Catholic Ex-Servicemen’s Association]. McVeigh, an ex-serviceman but not a member of the vigilante group, was chatting to them when they were fired upon. His four companions were all wounded – Gerard and Patrick Donnelly, Bernard McGribben and Patrick McCormick. The car continued along Riverdale Park for 100 yards, made a three-point turn on the narrow roadway and drove at high speed past the scene of the shooting and down Finaghy Road North to a military checkpoint at a railway bridge. The driver of the car showed a document to the soldiers and was allowed to proceed.

The prosecution stems from a police investigation that began after a BBC Panorama documentary in 2013. Cynics will note that it comes only a month after the death of General Sir Frank Kitson, the brigade commander in Belfast at the time, and the man who literally wrote the book on the use of counter-gangs against insurgents.

Yet the prosecution came close to not happening at all. The passage of Northern Ireland Troubles (Legacy and Reconciliation) Act 2023 means that, in a few months time, such cases will no longer be able to come to court.

It remains to be seen how far a criminal trial will shed light on the systemic issues raised by the MRF’s operations. As Edward Burke documents in his book Army of Tribes, the impunity of the state in Northern Ireland has sometimes come at the expense of enlisted men.

Despite the widespread view of Kitson as the mastermind behind the unit, the issue may go beyond the army. MRF had an intelligence role, running agents as well as plain-clothes patrols.

The director of intelligence at the army’s HQ Northern Ireland at the time, David Eastwood was an MI5 officer. Eastwood was involved in the oversight of internment without trial and deep interrogation, an early use of the ‘five techniques’ later employed in Iraq.

These heavy handed tactics contributed to an escalatory spiral which led to the abolition of the Northern Ireland government. Following the advent of direct rule from London, Eastwood was replaced by an MI6 officer based at the Northern Ireland Office, Fred Rowley, who would oversee the re-organisation of the MRF into the Special Reconnaissance Unit (SRU). This would in turn form the basis of the Special Reconnaissance Regiment later employed in Iraq and Afghanistan.

In the late 1970s, agent running operations became the responsibility of yet another outfit, the Force Research Unit (FRU). Some of the FRU’s agents inside paramilitary organisations, notably Brian Nelson and 'agent Stakeknife’ - Freddie Scappaticci, were implicated in multiple murders.

On Tuesday, prosecutors announced that they would not prosecute two IRA members and two of ‘Stakeknife’s’ handlers. They may have concluded that the FRU passed intelligence on potential killings to the police, in which case there are questions about the role of the RUC Special Branch.

Six prosecution files remain under consideration as part of the Stakeknife investigation, Operation Kenova, which may shed further light when it reports on 8 March. After that though, the shutters are set to come down as the legacy act draws a very stark line under the past.

Further Resources

Margaret Urwin: COUNTER-GANGS: A history of undercover military units in Northern Ireland 1971-1976, Spinwatch, Justice for the Forgotten & the Pat Finucane Centre, 2012.

Ciarán MacAirt, Shooters: Britain's Military Reaction Force and Operation Everson, Part 1/2, Paper Trail.