41 Facts About Martin O'Hagan

Owen Martin O'Hagan was an Irish investigative journalist from Lurgan, Northern Ireland.

Martin O'Hagan soon became involved in both the Official Sinn Fein and the Marxist-Leninist Official IRA.

Martin O'Hagan was arrested and questioned over various crimes, including the murder of a Royal Ulster Constabulary police officer and a British Army soldier, but was eventually convicted and sentenced only for firearms offences in 1973.

Martin O'Hagan reported on extortion, racketeering, narcotics trafficking, and other organized crimes committed by paramilitaries, like Robin Jackson.

Martin O'Hagan worked with the Channel 4 programme Dispatches on alleged collusion in multiple sectarian murders by security forces and Loyalists.

Martin O'Hagan was abducted in 1989 by members of the Provisional IRA, and often seriously angered the Ulster Volunteer Force's Mid-Ulster Brigade leader Billy Wright by writing exposes about his unit's activities and accusing Wright of being a criminal informant for RUC Special Branch.

On 28 September 2001, while walking home from a pub with his wife, Martin O'Hagan was shot from a moving car and died at the scene.

Martin O'Hagan was one of only two journalists killed while working during The Troubles, the other being Phillip Geddes in 1983, and he was the last killed in the United Kingdom before the death of Lyra McKee in 2019.

Martin O'Hagan was born in Lurgan in the north-east of County Armagh in 1950, the oldest of six children.

Martin O'Hagan's grandfather had served in the military, being evacuated from Dunkirk.

When Martin O'Hagan was four his family returned to Lurgan, where he attended school and his father ran a television repair shop.

Martin O'Hagan's family had a history of Irish republicanism: his uncle was J B O'Hagan, who escaped from Mountjoy Prison in 1973, and his cousin was Sinn Fein politician Dara O'Hagan.

Martin O'Hagan's mother had insisted he live in the Irish capital for a while to escape the political troubles of Lurgan, but this appears to have backfired.

Back home from Dublin, Martin O'Hagan had joined the Lurgan unit of the Official IRA, enjoying their socialist-republican policies and military wing.

In 1971, a few years after The Troubles began, Martin O'Hagan was one of many republican suspects who was interned at the paramilitary detention centre at Long Kesh.

Martin O'Hagan was released again, but caught by a British Army patrol transporting an Armalite rifle and an M1 carbine across Lurgan.

Martin O'Hagan was charged with the attempted murder of Private Ian Matterson of the Royal Regiment of Fusiliers, but the charge was dropped.

Martin O'Hagan soon began studying sociology with the Open University and later the University of Ulster.

Martin O'Hagan continued writing for Fortnight throughout the 1980s, becoming assistant editor underneath Pollak.

Martin O'Hagan soon began doing freelance work for The Irish Times, and in 1987 he joined the Belfast office of the Irish tabloid Sunday World, managed by Jim Campbell at the time.

Martin O'Hagan served as joint Belfast secretary of the National Union of Journalists, having a focus on contracts and bullying within the workplace.

Martin O'Hagan had been invited to south Armagh under the guise of an interview, but was then bound by members of the South Armagh Brigade.

Martin O'Hagan was eventually released after convincing them he was not a police agent.

Martin O'Hagan's body was found the next year, but the IRA denied involvement.

Martin O'Hagan began reporting on the murders, drug deals, and other crimes that happened under his watch.

In 1992, the Belfast offices of the Sunday World were bombed by the UVF; Martin O'Hagan was not present during the bombing, instead having been lured into another trap and beaten up at the Maze.

Martin O'Hagan continued working for the newspaper, and soon moved back to Lurgan in 1994.

Martin O'Hagan interviewed Christopher "Crip" McWilliams, a member of the Irish National Liberation Army and one of the killers of Billy Wright, which angered loyalists, before separately publishing an article on McWilliams apparently stalking a girl.

Martin O'Hagan's reporting was often supported by insider information, such as former loyalist activist Barrie Bradbury, whose life was threatened several times by paramilitary groups.

Martin O'Hagan was married to Marie, a Protestant woman who he met at the Carnegie Inn in Lurgan.

Martin O'Hagan had expressed concerns that he was being followed by members of the LVF, who he had angered by reporting their crimes.

Marie reported that Martin O'Hagan had called out "It's Mackers" as he saw the shooter, suggesting that he knew who his killers were.

Martin O'Hagan pushed his wife into their neighbour's hedge, while he took three bullets in the back.

Martin O'Hagan's murder was later claimed by members of the LVF, who often operated as the Red Hand Defenders.

On 1 October 2001, Martin O'Hagan's funeral was held in Lurgan.

Sinn Fein MLA for Upper Bann Dara Martin O'Hagan said the attack was part of an ongoing attempt by loyalist bitter enders to provoke Irish republican paramilitaries back into armed conflict.

Martin O'Hagan had played the bagpipes at Billy Wright's paramilitary-style funeral, and was removed from the RUC and Prison Service pipe bands as a result.

Martin O'Hagan gave the police the names of those in the flat, and shared information regarding the murder of Graham Edward Marks in 2001.

In 2003, a security source claimed that a loyalist paramilitary questioned over Martin O'Hagan's murder was an informer and Army intelligence agent.

In October 2006, Martin O'Hagan's siblings made a formal request to Police Ombudsman Nuala O'Loan, raising concerns that no one had been charged in the five years since the murder despite the police apparently knowing who was responsible.

Sunday World crime reporter Patricia Devlin, who like Martin O'Hagan has reported on drug gangs and their paramilitary connections, has received threats and been doxed by fake accounts and criminals featured in her stories.