Patrick Shanaghan

Patrick Shanaghan 31 years, Aghyaran, Castlederg, County Tyrone, shot dead on his way to work by UDA/UFF on 12 August 1991. The killing followed 6 years of constant harassment from the Crown Forces, being assaulted and threatened with death on numerous occasions. He stood as a Sinn Fein candidate in the 1989 local elections. He was also told by the RUC that his personal details were in the hands of unionist/loyalist paramilitaries after a photomontage was lost from a British army vehicle. The assault rifle used by the gunman in the killing was part of a huge haul of weaponry brought into Ireland from South Africa in 1988 by unionist/loyalist paramilitaries with the assistance of several British military agents and intelligence operatives.

Mr Shanaghan’s relatives and friends accused the RUC of colluding in the young man’s death.

At an inquest into the killing was held in 1996. RUC members called to give evidence could not account for the strange activities of several of their members immediately after the shooting. A lawyer for the Shanaghan family accused the RUC of preventing medical treatment of the victim after the shooting. The Shanaghan family’s lawyer walked out of the hearing after he was refused permission to submit a dossier of evidence relating to the killing. 

An independent public inquiry was held the same year at Castlederg, presided over by the Honourable Andrew I Somers Jr, an American legal expert, who concluded: ‘I have never seen a case where all the evidence loudly points to one conclusion. Patrick Shanaghan was murdered by the British government and more specifically with the collusion of the police. I would not hesitate to indict members of the RUC from top to bottom.’