MAYBE the most bizarre episode of the recent Troubles occurred, in 1977, when an under-cover British Army officer, posing as an itinerant musician, was snatched from a public house at Dromintee, beaten, pistol-whipped and shot dead.

The body of Captain Nairac was never recovered. But it was reported that the corpse had been put through the mincer at a meat-plant, and so entered the food-chain!

Indeed, the proprietor of the “Three Steps Inn,” from which Captain Nairac was seized, the late Des McCreesh, had a son killed by a booby-trapped car-bomb, in which young Michael McCreesh died, his companion, Michael Gallagher, being fatally injured.

Meanwhile, 7-year-old Patrick Toner lost his life, when the IRA detonated a proxy car-bomb at Forkhill. Also, Jim Lockrie and Sean Campbell were killed when the landmine they were preparing exploded prematurely.

Other victims of the Troubles were a Protestant farmer, Hugh Clarke, who was shot dead by the IRA on his tractor near Mullabawn. A Warrenpoint teacher, Liam Prince, was fatally injured, when a British soldier mistakenly opened fire after an IRA bomb attack near Dromintee. And an IRA man, Peter Cleary, was killed by the SAS near Forkhill. It was alleged that he was trying to escape.

Of course, many British soldiers and RUC men also met their fate in the Slieve Gullion region, - 18 in 1973 alone, including three in a landmine explosion, and another in a derelict house at Mullabawn. In one operation, the IRA launched an attack on Forkhill RUC Station, using rockets, mortars and machine-guns. People at a Credit Union meeting nearby had to dive for cover. One soldier received a hand injury.

Two members of the Parachute Regiment were shot dead by their comrades, when they walked into an ambush, set for the IRA. One month earlier, a Para was blown up by a milk-churn bomb at Tullydonnell. Meanwhile, popular Catholic RUC Inspector White was shot dead in his car, a few miles from the Forkhill base, where he was stationed.

But the most unusual victim of the Troubles lost his life, in 1977, when the “Three Steps” pub at Dromintee was the venue for the unfolding of a dramatic saga. Robert Nairac, a Catholic officer in the Grenadier Guards, based at Bessbrook Mill, had been visiting local pubs in disguise, singing rebel songs and ingratiating himself with the local population.

Shortly before his death in 1977, Captain Nairac wrote a military paper entitled “Talking to people in South Armagh,” outlining how it would be possible to gather information in that region. He had concluded that the British Army could not defeat the IRA militarily. The war had to be fought on the basis of Intelligence; it would not be won by “out-ambushing or out-shooting the IRA.

“We are up against a sophisticated enemy, and we must prepare accordingly. The IRA in South Armagh, and particularly Crossmaglen, are more professional and more successful than other parts of Northern Ireland. Little of the South Armagh ideas or expertise has seeped through to the rest of the IRA. That is because of insularity of the units and the thick-headedness of the IRA in other regions.”

Captain Nairac advised that soldiers, who served in South Armagh, should be hand-picked and specially trained. Everything they did “should be directed towards local contacts, amassing low-level Intelligence.”

Educated by Benedictine monks at the prestigious Catholic college, Ampleforth Abbey, Robert Nairac graduated from Oxford University, joined the Grenadier Guards and was posted to Northern Ireland.

Around South Armagh, his unorthodox, swashbuckling manner immediately attracted attention. He would go on foot-patrol around Crossmaglen, wearing a cowboy hat and trainers. And he would engage in conversation with local people, asking for a light, chatting up the girls, claiming that his mother came from Galway. Revealing a knowledge of Irish history, he was keen to discuss politics.

A superior in the SAS later described how the captain would go on patrol in Cross`, with long hair and a shotgun. Next day he would appear in Forkhill or Newry, in civilian attire.

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