26 Facts About John McKeague

John Dunlop McKeague was a Northern Irish loyalist and one of the founding members of the paramilitary group the Red Hand Commando in 1970.

John McKeague was shot dead by the Irish National Liberation Army in Belfast in January 1982.

Rumours that a young man with whom John McKeague was living was his boyfriend had been rife but John McKeague did not discuss the details.

John McKeague stated only that he had been summoned to a meeting by Paisley where he was told he was an "embarrassment" and would have to leave the Free Presbyterian Church.

Whatever the circumstances, the two became bitter enemies, with John McKeague frequently criticising Paisley in print.

In 1968 John McKeague became a regular figure amongst groups of locals who every night congregated in large groups in the Woodvale area close to Ardoyne after a series of incidents between loyalists and republicans during which flags from both sides had been forcibly removed.

John McKeague became a notorious figure locally, usually prominent in the rioting, carrying a stick and wearing a helmet.

In November 1969, John McKeague was cleared of a charge of conspiracy to cause explosions.

John McKeague was sentenced to three months' imprisonment for unlawful assembly.

This, combined with a rumour that John McKeague was a "fruit", saw him abandon all initiatives in the west and south of the city and concentrate on east Belfast.

John McKeague was a candidate for the Protestant Unionist Party, the forerunner of the Democratic Unionist Party, in a Belfast Corporation by-election for the Victoria ward in the east of the city in 1969, but was not elected.

The first man to be tried under the Incitement to Hatred Act, John McKeague's book included the line "you've never seen a better Taig than with a bullet in his head".

John McKeague was handed over to the Intelligence Corps by Special Branch the following year.

John McKeague broke fully from the UDA and established the Red Hand Commando in the middle of 1972, recruiting a number of young men primarily in east Belfast and North Down.

John McKeague had already been involved in organising the "Tartan gangs", groups of loyalist youths who were involved in rioting and general disorder, and used these as the basis of his new group.

John McKeague started two hunger strikes in protest against the Special Powers Act and prison conditions while in jail.

Martin Dillon reports that according to British military intelligence and police files, John McKeague was believed to have been behind the sadistic murder of a ten-year-old boy, Brian McDermott, in South Belfast in September 1973.

However, Gareth Mulvenna has claimed that John McKeague was serving a sentence in Long Kesh for robbery when McDermott was murdered, casting doubt over the validity of this accusation.

The aim of the group, which John McKeague chaired, was to co-ordinate loyalist paramilitaries with the aim of founding a unified "Ulster army" although this premise did not prevent a loyalist feud between the UDA and UVF continuing following its foundation.

In 1977, in a meeting brokered by the church-dissident Catholic priest Des Wilson, John McKeague talked to Gerry Adams.

John McKeague was a leading figure in the Ulster Independence Association, a group active from 1979 in support of an independent Northern Ireland.

John McKeague served as deputy to George Allport's leadership of the group.

In January 1982, John McKeague was interviewed by detectives investigating his involvement in sodomising and prostituting teenage boys at Kincora.

However, on 29 January 1982, John McKeague was shot dead in his shop on Albertbridge Road in east Belfast, reportedly by the INLA.

Democratic Unionist Party deputy leader Peter Robinson attended the removal of John McKeague's remains from his sister's home in East Belfast, as did former Ulster Vanguard leader William Craig, of whose party John McKeague had briefly been a member.

Des Wilson, who said: "John McKeague did a lot of terrible things but he was willing to talk to us".