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The Reavey and O'Dowd killings were two coordinated gun attacks on 4 January 1976 in County Armagh, Northern Ireland.Six Catholic civilians died after members of the Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF), an Ulster loyalist paramilitary group, broke into their homes and shot them.
12 October: The UVF wounded a Catholic civilian in a gun attack in North Belfast. [178] 19 October: A Catholic man escaped injury in Lurgan, County Armagh after his UVF assailant's gun jammed. [199] 24 October: The UVF claimed to have aborted an attack on the home of a Sinn Féin member in the Antrim area. [200]
His widow had lost her brother, Brian McCoy, in the UVF attack on the Miami Showband in 1975. [62] 18 May – Gavin McShane (17) and Shane McArdle (17), both Catholic civilians, were shot dead by the Ulster Volunteer Force, while in a taxi depot, Lower English Street, Armagh. [63] Gavin McShane died instantly and Shane McArdle 24 hours later.
The UVF had launched its first attack in the Republic of Ireland on 5 August 1969, when it bombed the RTÉ Television Centre in Dublin. [35] [36] There were further attacks in the Republic between October and December 1969. In October, UVF and UPV member Thomas McDowell was killed by the bomb he was planting at Ballyshannon power station.
The first attack, a car bombing, took place outside Kay's Tavern, a pub along Crowe Street in Dundalk, County Louth, Republic of Ireland - close to the border. The second, a gun and bomb attack, took place at Donnelly's Bar & Filling Station in Silverbridge, County Armagh , just across the border inside Northern Ireland .
The UVF Mid-Ulster Brigade, based in the Craigavon area, stepped up its attacks in the early 1990s.At this time it was led by Billy Wright from Portadown.In March 1991, the UVF shot dead three Catholic civilians (two teenage girls and a man) at a mobile shop in Craigavon (see 1991 Drumbeg killings).
RUC officer John Weir claims that a fellow RUC officer confessed to partaking in the attack, alongside a UDR soldier and UVF members. [29] The attack has been linked to the Glenanne gang. 4 January 1976: Reavey and O'Dowd killings. [14] At about 6pm, gunmen broke into the Reavey family home in Whitecross, County Armagh.
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. [27] Ballistics tests show that the Sterling submachine gun used in the Reavey shootings was the same as that used in the Donnelly's Bar attack at Silverbridge. [28]