Brendan McFarlane

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Brendan McFarlane (nicknamed "Bik") is an Irish Republican activist. Born in 1951, he is married with three children and was brought up in the Ardoyne area of north Belfast. At 16, he left Belfast to train as a Roman Catholic priest in a north Wales seminary.^[1] He joined the Provisional IRA in 1969.

Contents 1 Bayardo Bar attack 2 In Prison 3 Tidey Kidnapping 4 Recent activities 5 Charged with Kidnapping 6 References

[edit] Bayardo Bar attack

In 1976 McFarlane was sentenced to life imprisonment in connection with a gun and bomb attack on the Bayardo Bar on Belfast's Protestant Shankill Road that killed five people. Two female pedestrians passed by the pub when it was blown up and McFarlane fired on them with a machine gun - killing both.^[2] The bar was attacked because it was allegedly frequented by member of the loyalist Ulster Volunteer Force, however, only one of the five people who were killed had links to loyalist paramilitaries. The IRA initially denied it had carried out the attack.^[3] The IRA killed 91 Protestant civilians in similar attacks in 1974-76, in reprisal for loyalist attacks on Catholics.^[4]

[edit] In Prison

McFarlane tried to escape the Maze Prison dressed as a priest in 1978. The bid failed, McFarlane’s Special Category Status was withdrawn, and he joined the dirty protest in the H-blocks.

He was Provisional IRA Officer Commanding in the Maze during the 1981 Irish Hunger Strike in which 10 republicans died. He took over from Bobby Sands in March 1981 at the start of the strike who gave his job to McFarlane. Asked why, Sands is said to have replied: “Because you will let me die.” McFarlane's tenure as OC of IRA prisoners during the hunger strike saw a total of ten republican prisoners starve to death. He later described 1981 as, "probably the worst year of my life. Despite the political gains, the loss of that year is always with me".^[5]

McFarlane went on to lead the mass escape of 38 republican prisoners from the Maze in 1983 in which a prison officer was killed. Fifteen IRA men were caught in the vicinity of the prison, four were captured the following day, 19 got away, with three never being recaptured.

[edit] Tidey Kidnapping

After the breakout McFarlane resumed his IRA activities. In December 1983, he is alleged to have kidnapped supermarket executive Don Tidey in a bid to ransom him to raise money for the PIRA. The kidnap was one of spate of kidnappings and robberies ordered by the IRA Army Council in the early 1980s to raise funds.^[6] Tidey was taking his 13-year-old daughter to school when he stopped at what he believed to be a Garda (Republic of Ireland police) checkpoint. A gun was put to his head and he was bundled into a waiting car. A few days later his photograph was sent to Associated British Foods, and this was followed by a phone call demanding a IR£5 million ransom.^[7]

The Gardai eventually tracked Tidey and his kidnappers — four in all — to Derrada Wood in Ballinamore, County Leitrim on 16 December 1983. In the subsequent shoot-out, a trainee garda and an Irish Army soldier were killed. Tidey’s kidnappers escaped.

On 16 January 1986 McFarlane was recaptured in The Netherlands along with fellow escapee Gerry Kelly, and subsequently extradited to Northern Ireland, and released on parole from the Maze in 1997.^[8][9][10]

[edit] Recent activities

McFarlane was part of the IRA delegation that met with the Provisional IRA South Armagh Brigade in August 2004 to discuss Gerry Adams' remarks that the PIRA might disband to prevent it being used as an excuse to delay a power-sharing agreement which would include republicans.^[11]

He is now a member of Coiste na n-Iarchimí ("the Graduates") - a welfare organisation for republican ex-prisoners.^[12]

The political wing of the Provisional Republican movement, Sinn Fein, describes him as a voluntary worker, and he has been a vocal supporter of the party’s political stance, appearing beside both Gerry Adams and Gerry Kelly at rallies and reiterating former prisoners’ support for the direction the party is taking.

McFarlane has formed a band, Tuan, which is a regular on the Irish republican entertainment circuit.^[13]

In 1998, McFarlane had been pictured shaking hands with the Irish president, Mary McAleese, who is also from Ardoyne area of Belfast^{[citation needed]}.

[edit] Charged with Kidnapping

McFarlane is still facing charges in the Republic of Ireland over the kidnapping of Don Tidey in 1983.

In 1998, McFarlane was first charged with Tidey’s kidnapping, but he challenged this on the basis that gardai had lost a number of exhibits containing fingerprints — the central evidence in the case. The Irish Supreme Court ruled in March 2006 that the trial could proceed.^[14]

The gardai are basing the Tidey charges on items recovered from the kidnap site, including a milk carton and a plastic container, on which fingerprints were discovered. Although the items went missing from garda headquarters during renovation work, the fingerprints had been photographed and a forensic analysis done.

McFarlane was due to stand trial on 3 October 2006. However his legal team launched a second judicial review in May 2006, on the grounds that MFarlane could not get a fair trial due to "systematic delays in bringing the prosecution". This held up his trial until the Irish High Court ruled on the issue on 8 December.^[15] It ruled that McFarlane had not had his rights violated. His trial is expected to go ahead in 2007.

[edit] References