page_title: Stephen McKeag
section_title: Killings
hierarchical_section_title: Stephen McKeag / Killings
caption_attribution_description: English: Lanark Way, Belfast as viewed from the Springfield Road
context_page_description: Stephen McKeag, nicknamed "Top Gun", was a Northern Irish loyalist and a Commander of the Ulster Defence Association's 'C' Company in the 1990s. He is responsible for many killings of Catholics and Republicans. He is also have thought to have shot the most Catholics in Northern Ireland. Although most of his operations took place from the Shankill Road in Belfast McKeag was actually a native of the lower Oldpark Road in the north of the city.
context_section_description: McKeag became involved in 'C' Company of the lower Shankill – the most active unit of the UDA – around 1989, heading his own section of the company which was a hit squad (other sections concentrating on drug-dealing, money laundering and similar activities). According to Henry McDonald and Jim Cusack, the UDA gave an annual "Volunteer of the Year" award to the organisation's top hitman. The award, presented on the Shankill Road and usually consisting of a trophy in the form of a model gun and plaque made by loyalists prisoners, was dominated by McKeag from 1990 onwards and helped to ensure that he became known as "Top Gun" both to his UDA comrades and his republican opponents. In all, the RUC estimated that McKeag was responsible for at least 12 killings, although the figure was placed higher by a number of his former paramilitary associates.
  One of McKeag's earliest attacks occurred on 11 March 1990 when he shot and killed Eamon Quinn outside his Kashmir Road home in the Clonard district of the Falls Road, beginning a long campaign of sectarian killings by the UDA. On 31 July he was behind a similar attack on the Springfield Road, where Catholic John Judge was killed after being shot five times by McKeag and his unit. This was followed on 16 October by the killing of Dermot McGuinness in Rosapena Street in north Belfast. Another victim was Seamus Sullivan, the son of former Belfast City Council member Jim Sullivan of the Workers' Party, killed on 4 September 1991 at the council depot on Springfield Avenue where he worked. Lawrence Murchan, a shopkeeper who was killed by McKeag and his unit on St James's Road on 28 September was the 2000th person to be killed during The Troubles. This was followed on 14 November by an attack on the Devenish Arms in Finaghy, resulting in the death of civil servant Aidan Wallace and wounding an 8-year-old boy who lost an eye.
  Following his killing of Catholic shop worker Philomena Hanna at a chemists near the Springfield Road on 28 April 1992, eyewitnesses reported that as McKeag and his driver sped back to the Shankill via Lanark Way they shouted and sang his favourite song, 'Follow the Yellow Brick Road' from The Wizard of Oz. Other UDA members later confirmed that the Yellow Brick Road was McKeag's nickname for Lanark Way, a street linking the Shankill and Springfield roads and favoured by loyalist hitmen as an escape route from Republican West Belfast. An attack on 14 November 1992, launched by McKeag, under the orders of Johnny Adair, on a branch of Sean Graham's bookmakers on the Oldpark Road left three Catholics dead and a number of others, including some Protestants who also frequented the betting shop, injured. 
  As well as civilian Catholics, McKeag was also involved on attacks upon republicans. On 1 May 1993 Alan Lundy, a former Provisional IRA activist, was killed by McKeag at the home of Sinn Féin's councillor Alex Maskey, in the Andersonstown area. McKeag struck again on 8 August 1993, killing Sean Lavery at the Antrim Road home of his father Bobby Lavery, a Sinn Féin councillor who had been the target of the attack. However non-republicans continued to be targets and on 30 August he killed Marie Teresa Dowds de Mogollon in an attack on her home, although this murder was seen as extreme by UDA brigadiers outside C Company, resulting in it eventually being claimed as an accident when it was claimed under the UDA's Ulster Freedom Fighters cover name. This was followed on 7 September 1993 when McKeag and two other UDA members entered a hairdresser's shop on the upper Donegall Road and shot the proprietor Sean Hughes dead. Although brought to trial he was not convicted after eyewitness testimony did not stand up to scrutiny. The following day shopkeeper Michael Edwards was killed at his Finaghy home by McKeag and his unit and on 15 October McKeag killed Paddy McMahon after calling for him to deliver a pizza to a derelict house. McKeag was held in prison soon after this attack for the Hughes trial and the mantle of top hitman in C Company temporarily passed to Gary "Smickers" Smyth
caption: Lanark Way, known to McKeag as the "Yellow Brick Road"
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