Uploaded May 2025 | Updated September 2026, 1 hour ago
Martin McCaughey was shot dead along with Dessie Grew in an operation by undercover British soldiers. A secret undercover intelligence unit named 14 Intelligence Company, also known as the DET, were monitoring three AK47s at a farm building in a rural part of County Armagh and were aware that the pair were due to remove the guns.
As they were approaching an agricultural shed which was being used to grow mushrooms and also thought to have been an IRA arms dump, as many as 200 shots are believed to have been fired at the two men by SAS soldiers, British Army reports of the shooting stated that the two men left the shed holding two rifles. Republican sources state the men were unarmed.
The family of McCaughey claimed that Grew and McCaughey were ambushed after a stake out by the SAS. In January 2002, Justice Weatherup, a Northern Ireland High Court Judge ordered that official military document relating to the shooting should be disclosed. However, PSNI Chief Constable Hugh Orde had the ruling overturned on appeal in January 2005.
In April and May 2012, an inquest in front of a jury was held. Reaching its verdict after hearing weeks of evidence, the jury ruled that the SAS had used "reasonable force" during the operation and that the IRA men's own actions had contributed to their deaths
McCaughey was buried at Galbally Cemetery in October 1990.
Martin McCaughey was shot dead along with Dessie Grew in an operation by undercover British soldiers. A secret undercover intelligence unit named 14 Intelligence Company, also known as the DET, were monitoring three AK47s at a farm building in a rural part of County Armagh and were aware that the pair were due to remove the guns.
As they were approaching an agricultural shed which was being used to grow mushrooms and also thought to have been an IRA arms dump, as many as 200 shots are believed to have been fired at the two men by SAS soldiers, British Army reports of the shooting stated that the two men left the shed holding two rifles. Republican sources state the men were unarmed.
The family of McCaughey claimed that Grew and McCaughey were ambushed after a stake out by the SAS. In January 2002, Justice Weatherup, a Northern Ireland High Court Judge ordered that official military document relating to the shooting should be disclosed. However, PSNI Chief Constable Hugh Orde had the ruling overturned on appeal in January 2005.
In April and May 2012, an inquest in front of a jury was held. Reaching its verdict after hearing weeks of evidence, the jury ruled that the SAS had used "reasonable force" during the operation and that the IRA men's own actions had contributed to their deaths
McCaughey was buried at Galbally Cemetery in October 1990.
