Robert Nairac Captain Robert Laurence Nairac GC ( 31 August 1948 – 15 May 1977 ) was a British Army officer who was abducted from a pub in Dromintee , south County Armagh , during an undercover operation and killed by the Provisional Irish Republican Army ( IRA ) on his fourth tour of duty in Northern Ireland as a Military Intelligence Liaison Officer . He was posthumously awarded the George Cross in 1979 . A number of claims have been made about both Nairac ' s involvement in the killing of an IRA member and his collusion with loyalist paramilitaries , however he was never charged . Whilst several men have been imprisoned for his death , the whereabouts of his body remains unknown . Background . Nairac was born in Mauritius to English parents . His family – long settled in Gloucestershire – had ancestors from the south of Ireland . His family name originates from the Gironde area of France . His father was an eye surgeon who worked first in the north of England and then in Gloucester . He was the youngest of four children , with two sisters and a brother . Nairac , aged 10 , attended prep school at Gilling Castle , a feeder school for the Roman Catholic public school Ampleforth College which he attended a year later . He gained nine O levels and three A levels , was head of his house and played rugby for the school . He became friends with the sons of Lord Killanin and went to stay with the family in Dublin and Spiddal in County Galway . He read medieval and military history at Lincoln College , Oxford , and excelled in sport ; he played for the Oxford rugby 2nd XV and revived the Oxford boxing club where he won four blues in bouts with Cambridge . During this time he was in a boxing competition which placed him against Martin Meehan , later a senior IRA commander , with whom he went three rounds . He was also a falconer , keeping a bird in his room which was used in the film " Kes " . He left Oxford in 1971 to enter Royal Military Academy Sandhurst under the sponsorship of the Grenadier Guards and was commissioned with them upon graduation . After Sandhurst he undertook post - graduate studies at the University of Dublin , before joining his regiment . Nairac has been described by former army colleagues as " a committed Roman Catholic " and as having " a strong Catholic belief " . Military career in Northern Ireland . Nairac ' s first tour of duty in Northern Ireland was with No . 1 Company , the Second Battalion of the Grenadier Guards . The Battalion was stationed in Belfast from 5 July 1973 to 31 October 1973 . The Grenadiers were given responsibility first for the Protestant Shankill Road area and then the predominantly Catholic Ardoyne area . This was a time of high tension and regular contacts with paramilitaries . Ostensibly , the battalion ' s two main objectives were to search for weapons and to find paramilitaries . Nairac was frequently involved in such activity on the streets of Belfast . He was also a volunteer in community relations activities in the Ardoyne sports club . The battalion ' s tour was adjudged a success with 58 weapons , 9 , 000 rounds of ammunition and 693 lbs of explosive taken and 104 men jailed . The battalion took no casualties and had no occasion to shoot anyone . After his tour had ended he stayed on as liaison officer for the replacement battalion , the 1st Battalion of the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders . The new battalion suffered a baptism of fire with Nairac narrowly avoiding death on their first patrol when a car bomb exploded on the Crumlin Road . Rather than returning to his battalion , which was due for rotation to Hong Kong , Nairac volunteered for military intelligence duties in Northern Ireland . Following completion of several training courses , he returned to Northern Ireland in 1974 attached to 4 Field Survey Troop , Royal Engineers , one of the three sub - units of a Special Duties unit known as 14 Intelligence Company ( 14 Int ) . Posted to South County Armagh , 4 Field Survey Troop was given the task of performing surveillance duties . Nairac was the liaison officer among the unit , the local British Army brigade , and the Royal Ulster Constabulary . He also took on duties which were outside his official jurisdiction as a liaison officer – working undercover , for example . He apparently claimed to have visited pubs in republican strongholds and sung Irish rebel songs and acquired the nickname " Danny Boy " . He was often driven to pubs by now - Conservative MP Patrick Mercer , who was then an Army officer . Former SAS Warrant Officer Ken Connor , who was involved in the creation of 14 Int , wrote of him in his book , Ghost Force , p . 263 : Nairac finished his tour with 14th Int in mid - 1975 and returned to his regiment in London . Nairac was promoted to captain on 4 September 1975 . Following a rise in violence culminating in the Kingsmill massacre , British Army troop levels were increased and Nairac accepted a post again as a liaison officer back in Northern Ireland . Nairac on his fourth tour was a liaison officer to the units based at Bessbrook Mill . It was during this time that he was abducted and killed . Shot by the Provisional IRA . On the evening of 14 May 1977 , Nairac arrived at The Three Steps pub in Dromintee , South Armagh , by car , alone . He is said to have told regulars of the pub that his name was Danny McErlaine , a motor mechanic and member of the Official IRA from the republican Ardoyne area in north Belfast . The real McErlaine , on the run since 1974 , was killed by the IRA in June 1978 , after stealing arms from the organisation . 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 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 . 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 ' . His disappearance sparked a huge search effort throughout Ireland . The hunt in Northern Ireland was led by Major H . Jones , who as a colonel in the Parachute Regiment was to be awarded a posthumous Victoria Cross in the Falklands War . Jones was Brigade Major at HQ 3rd Infantry Brigade . Nairac and Jones had become friends and would sometimes go to the Jones household for supper . After a four day search , the Garda Síochána confirmed to the Royal Ulster Constabulary that they had reliable evidence of Nairac ' s killing . An edition of " Spotlight " broadcast on 19 June 2007 , claimed that his body was not destroyed in a meat grinder , as alleged by an unnamed IRA source . McCormick , who has been on the run in the United States for thirty years because of his involvement in the killing ( including being the first to attack Nairac in the car park ) , was told by a senior IRA commander that it was buried on farmland , unearthed by animals , and reburied elsewhere . The location of the body ' s resting place remains a mystery . Nairac is one of nine IRA victims , whose graves have never been revealed and who are collectively known as ' The Disappeared ' . The cases are under review by the Independent Commission for the Location of Victims ' Remains . In May 2000 allegations were made claiming that Nairac had married , and fathered a child with a woman named Nel Lister , also known as Oonagh Flynn or Oonagh Lister . In 2001 , her son sought DNA testing himself and revealed the allegations to be a hoax . Criminal prosecutions . In November 1977 , Liam Townson , a 24 - year - old PIRA member from the village of Meigh outside Newry , was convicted of Nairac ' s murder . Townson was the son of an Englishman who had married a Meath woman . He confessed to killing Nairac and implicated other members of the unit involved . Townson made two admissible confessions to Garda officers . The first was made around the time of his arrest , it started with " I shot the British captain . He never told us anything . He was a great soldier . " The second statement was made at Dundalk police station after Townson had consulted a solicitor . He had become hysterical and distressed and screamed a confession to the officer in charge of the investigation . Townson was convicted in Dublin ' s Special Criminal Court of Nairac ' s murder and sentenced to life imprisonment . Townson served 13 years in prison and was released in 1990 . He was part of Conor Murphy ' s 1998 election campaign team and as of 2000 he was living in St . Moninna Park , in Meigh . In 1978 , the RUC arrested five men from the South Armagh area . Three of them - Gerard Fearon , 21 , Thomas Morgan , 18 , and Daniel O ' Rourke , 33 - were charged with Nairac ' s murder . Michael McCoy , 20 , was charged with kidnapping , and Owen Rocks , 22 , was accused of withholding information . Fearon and Morgan were convicted of Nairac ' s murder . O ' Rourke was acquitted but found guilty of manslaughter and jailed for ten years . McCoy was jailed for five years and Rocks for two . Morgan died in a road accident in 1987 , a year after his release . O ' Rourke became a prominent Sinn Féin member in Drumintee . Two other men , Terry McCormick and Pat Maguire , wanted in connection with this incident remain on the run . Maguire has been reported as living in New Jersey in the US . On 20 May 2008 , 57 - year - old IRA veteran Kevin Crilly of Jonesborough , County Armagh , was arrested at his home by officers of the Police Service of Northern Ireland ( PSNI ) . He had been on the run in the United States but had returned to Northern Ireland under an alias after the 1998 Belfast Agreement . He was charged the following day with the kidnapping and false imprisonment of Nairac . In November 2009 , Crilly was also charged with the murder of Robert Nairac at Newry magistrates ' court during a bail hearing on the two counts on which he had been charged in 2008 . Crilly was cleared on all counts in April 2011 as the Judge considered that the prosecution failed to prove intention or prior knowledge on the part of Crilly . Nairac ' s killing is one of those under investigation by the Police Service of Northern Ireland ' s Historical Enquiries Team ( HET ) . George Cross award . On 13 February 1979 , Nairac was posthumously awarded the George Cross . Captain Nairac ' s posthumous George Cross citation reads , in part : Collusion allegations . Claims have been made abouts Nairac ' s conduct with regard to claims of involvement in the killing of an IRA member in the Republic of Ireland and relations with loyalist paramilitaries . Hidden Hand documentary . Allegations were made concerning Nairac in a 1993 Yorkshire Television documentary about the Dublin and Monaghan Bombings of 1974 entitled " Hidden Hand " . The narrator of " Hidden Hand " states : According to the documentary , support for this allegation was said to have come from various sources : Holroyd . It was alleged by a former MI6 operative , Captain Fred Holroyd , that Nairac admitted involvement in the assassination of PIRA member John Francis Green on 10 January 1975 to him . Holroyd claimed in a " New Statesman " article written by Duncan Campbell that Nairac had boasted about Green ' s death and showed him a colour Polaroid photograph of Green ' s corpse taken directly after his assassination . These claims were given prominence when , in 1987 , Ken Livingstone MP told the House of Commons that Nairac was quite likely to have been the person who organised the killing of three Miami Showband musicians . The Barron Report stated that : Also Holroyd ' s evidence was questioned by Barron in the following terms : Barron report . Nairac was mentioned in Justice Henry ' Barron ' s inquiry into the Dublin and Monaghan bombings when it examined the claims made by the " Hidden Hand " documentary , Holroyd and Colin Wallace Former RUC Special Patrol Group member , John Weir , who was a UVF member , claimed he had received information from an informant that Nairac was involved in the killing of Green : In addition , " Surviving Miami Showband members Steve Travers and Des McAlee testified in court that an Army officer with a crisp English accent oversaw the Miami attack " - see Miami Showband killings - the implication being that this was Nairac . Fred Holroyd and John Weir also linked Robert Nairac to the Green and Miami Showband killings . Martin Dillon , however , in his book " The Dirty War " maintained that Nairac was not involved in either attack . Colin Wallace , in describing Nairac as a Military Intelligence Liaison Officer ( MILO ) said " his duties did not involve agent handling " . Nevertheless , Nairac " seems to have had close links with the Mid - Ulster UVF , including Robin Jackson and Harris Boyle " . According to Wallace , " he could not have carried out this open association without official approval , because otherwise he would have been transferred immediately from Northern Ireland " Wallace wrote in 1975 ; Nairac was on his fourth tour of duty in 1977 . Robin Jackson was implicated in the Dublin and Monaghan bombings of May 1974 , and Harris Boyle was blown up by his own bomb during the Miami Showband massacre . The Barron Inquiry found a chain of ballistic history linking weapons and killings under the control of a group of UVF and security force members , including RUC Special Patrol Group members John Weir and Billy McCaughey , that is connected to those alleged to have carried out the bombings . This group was known as the " Glenanne gang " . Incidents they were responsible for " included , in 1975 , three murders at Donnelly ' s bar in Silverbridge , the murders of two men at a fake Ulster Defence Regiment checkpoint , the murder of IRA man John Francis Green in the Republic , the murders of members of the Miami showband and the murder of Dorothy Trainor in Portadown in 1976 , they included the murders of three members of the Reavey family , and the attack on the Rock Bar in Tassagh . " The Pat Finucane Centre stated when investigating allegations of collusion between the security forces and loyalist paramilitaries , that although Nairac has been linked to many attacks , " caution has to be taken when dealing with Nairac as attacks are sometimes attributed to him purely because of his reputation " . In fiction . Eoin McNamee ' s 2004 novel " The Ultras " offers a fictionalised but factually - based account of Nairac ' s life and career . McNamee has said that he had had " the idea of Nairac in my head for a long time , but I wasn ' t able to find a way into the whole subject . In the end I used him as a conduit to the covert and psychic infrastructure of the time , to the gripping physical and moral texture of what was going on . " External links .