Glenanne gang and Dublin car bombings McConnell was born in Northern Ireland in about 1944 and grew up in a
Church of Ireland family. Vetting procedures were carried out jointly by Army Intelligence and the RUC's Special Branch and if no intelligence was found to suggest unsuitability individuals were passed for recruitment and would remain as soldiers until the commanding officer was provided with intelligence enabling him to remove soldiers with paramilitary links or sympathies. In the regimental history of the UDR the author commented on men like McConnell and (referring to another individual) suggested that, "he may have regarded himself as a true blue loyalist but had so little understanding of the meaning of loyalty that he would betray his regiment and his comrades....." He was also a member of the
Orange Order's Cladybeg Faith Defenders LOL (Loyal orange lodge) 305b,
Newtownhamilton District, and a Sir Knight in the Guiding Star
Royal Black Preceptory No.1133; he held the office of Preceptory Lecturer at the time of his death. The Orange Order and Royal Black Preceptory are both Protestant fraternal societies. McConnell attended St. John's Church of Ireland in Newtownhamilton, where he was also a church worker. At some time prior to 1974, he allegedly joined the UVF's
Mid-Ulster Brigade which was led by
Billy Hanna until the latter's fatal shooting on 27 July 1975, when the suspected gunman,
Robin Jackson, assumed command. According to journalist
Toby Harnden, McConnell "was a very senior member in the UVF". The gang carried out their sectarian attacks against the Catholic
nationalist and
republican community primarily in the County Armagh and Mid-Ulster area, but also ventured south on several occasions when they hit targets in the Republic. The 1993 Yorkshire Television programme
The Hidden Hand: the Forgotten Massacre named McConnell along with UVF brigadier Billy Hanna,
Harris Boyle, and
"the Jackal" as having planned and carried out the 1974 Dublin car bombings. A former friend of McConnell's claimed that British soldiers "used to call at Robert's house for him after he had finished his normal duties and he often crossed the border with them". Former British soldier and
psychological warfare operative Major
Colin Wallace said he was told in 1974 that McConnell, along with Robin Jackson, was an
RUC Special Branch agent. This allegation was confirmed in a letter written by Wallace to a colleague dated 14 August 1975.
John Francis Green killing McConnell is named by Weir to have been involved in a gun and bomb attack against a pub in
Crossmaglen in November 1974, resulting in the fatal injury of Thomas McNamee. Weir claimed that Robert Nairac also took part in Green's shooting with the following statement: The men who did that shooting were Robert McConnell, Robin Jackson, and I would be almost certain, Harris Boyle who was killed in the
Miami attack. What I am absolutely certain of is that Robert McConnell, Robert McConnell knew that area really, really well. Robin Jackson was with him. I was later told that Nairac was with them. I was told by...a UVF man, he was very close to Jackson and operated with him. Jackson told [him] that Nairac was with them.
Altnamachin and Silverbridge attacks On 24 August 1975, McConnell was alleged by Weir to have been part of a UVF group that ambushed two
Gaelic football supporters at a bogus vehicle
checkpoint set up in the Cortamlet Road at the
townland of Altnamachin, near Tullyvallen close to the Irish Republic border. At about 11.30 pm, Colm McCartney (aged 22) from Derry and Sean Farmer (aged 32), from Armagh, were returning home from the
Derry versus Dublin All-Ireland semi-final football match at
Croke Park in Dublin when the group stopped the car they were travelling in. Upon their discovery that the two men inside were Catholics, the UVF gunmen ordered them out of the car and a short distance away turned their guns on Farmer, killing him instantly. McCartney attempted to escape on foot, but his pursuers caught up with him and he was also fatally gunned down. McCartney and Farmer had been shot four times and six times respectively. McConnell was wearing his British Army uniform at the time the attack occurred. The killings were claimed by the
Protestant Action Force, one of the cover names used by the Glenanne gang. The fake vehicle checkpoint manned UVF men in full British Army uniform was the same
modus operandi which the UVF had employed when they waylaid the
Miami Showband—a popular Irish cabaret band—the previous month at Buskhill,
County Down; however, McConnell was not implicated in that incident. On 19 December 1975, a car pulled up outside
Donnelly's Bar in
Silverbridge, County Armagh. Members of the Glenanne gang got out and launched a bomb and machine-gun attack against the pub's patrons, hitting those inside as well as outside the premises. A total of three people were killed, including the proprietor's 14-year-old son, Michael, who was struck in the head by flying shrapnel after one of the gang tossed a bomb inside the pub's interior, shouting: "Happy Christmas, you
Fenian bastards". Six other people were seriously injured, including a woman who was shot in the head. Weir named McConnell as having carried out the attack together with RUC SPG Officer
Laurence McClure, and several other men. The
Pat Finucane Centre commissioned an international panel of inquiry to investigate allegations of collusion between loyalist paramilitaries and the security forces regarding a series of sectarian attacks against the Catholic nationalist and republican community. This panel, headed by Professor Douglass Cassel of
Northwestern University School of Law, stated in its report that James Mitchell's housekeeper, Sarah Elizabeth "Lily" Shields, who had provided the gang's getaway car, named McConnell as having been one of the perpetrators. McClure, the driver of the
getaway car—a blue Lada—confirmed this. He and Shields had played the part of a "courting couple" inside the car as the attack was being carried out by the other gang members. McClure and Shields were later charged with withholding information in relation to the pub killings. According to Anne Cadwallader in her book
Lethal Allies British Collusion in Ireland Shields later admitted to the RUC that she had been McConnell's girlfriend since 1971. Following the attack, McConnell and some of the others then regrouped at the Glenanne farm. James Mitchell later stated that McConnell had been a visitor to his farmhouse that same evening before and after the Silverbridge incident. McClure claimed that he encountered McConnell several days afterwards, and McConnell had allegedly said to McClure: "That was a good job the other night", which McClure had understood to have been an allusion to Silverbridge. The gang claimed the attack using another of their cover names, the
Red Hand Commandos. According to Weir's affidavit, the pub was specifically chosen in retaliation for the killing of an RUC reserve constable who it was believed had been detained at Donnelly's Bar subsequent to his kidnapping by the IRA. The gunmen entered the Reavey home by the key which had been accidentally left in the door and opened fire on three brothers who watching television at the time, killing John and Brian outright, and wounding another, Anthony. The other members of the large family had previously gone out leaving the three brothers on their own. The getaway car on this occasion had been driven by James Mitchell with Lily Shields having accompanied him. The man Anthony Reavey had described was 5"11, aged about 25 or 26, wearing a black woollen
balaclava hood, green anorak, and dark trousers; he was carrying a submachine gun. The Reavey and O'Dowd killings provoked the
South Armagh Republican Action Force to retaliate the following evening by
shooting ten Protestant workmen to death after ambushing their minibus outside
Kingsmill. The Glenanne gang had decided to avenge this attack by killing at least 30 schoolchildren and their teacher at St Lawrence O'Toole Primary School in
Belleeks. It was suggested that the gang member who proposed the idea was a UDR officer with ties to British Military Intelligence who was later shot dead by the IRA. McConnell's name, however, was not mentioned in this context. The plan was aborted at the last minute by the UVF's Brigade Staff (Belfast leadership), who deemed it "morally unacceptable" and feared such an attack against small children would lead to a civil war. McConnell was later accused by Weir of planting a car bomb that blew up outside the Three Star Inn, a pub in Castleblaney's main street on 7 March 1976, killing one civilian Patrick Mone and injuring others on 7th Match 1976. The bomb was placed in a car next to that of Mr Mone's and was not intended for him. The explosives used had been stored at the Glenanne farm. ==Death==