Uploaded August 2025 | Updated September 2026, 1 hour ago
The 1991 Cappagh killings was a gun attack by the loyalist Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF) on the 3rd of March 1991 in the village of Cappagh, County Tyrone, Northern Ireland. A unit of the UVF's Mid-Ulster Brigade drove to the staunchly republican village and shot dead three Provisional IRA members and a Catholic civilian at Boyle's Bar.
On the evening of Sunday the 3rd of March 1991, a unit of the Ulster Volunteer Force's Mid-Ulster Brigade drove into the heartland of the East Tyrone IRA, intent on wiping out an entire IRA unit that was based in the County Tyrone village of Cappagh.One team of the UVF men waited outside Boyle's Bar, whilst a second team waited on the outskirts of the town.At 10.30 p.m. when a car pulled-up in the carpark outside the bar, the UVF gunmen opened fire with vz. 58 assault rifles, killing Provisional IRA volunteers John Quinn (23), Dwayne O'Donnell (17) and Malcolm Nugent (20).The victims and car were riddled with bullets. According to author Thomas G. Mitchell, Quinn, O’Donnell and Nugent were part of an IRA Active Service Unit (ASU).The gunmen then attempted to enter the pub but were unable to after the civilians inside realised what was happening and barricaded the door. Unable to get into the bar, a UVF gunman shot through a high open toilet window killing local civilian, Thomas Armstrong (50) and badly wounding a 21-year-old man. Their intended target, IRA commander Brian Arthurs, escaped with his life by crouching behind the bar during the shooting.According to the Conflict Archive on the Internet (CAIN), the three IRA volunteers had only chosen to go to the pub "on the spur of the moment", thus they were unlikely to have been the UVF's original target.
Although nobody was ever charged in connection with the killings, it was widely believed by nationalists and much of the press that the attack had been planned and led by Billy Wright, the leader of the Mid-Ulster Brigade's Portadown unit. Wright himself took credit for this and boasted to The Guardian newspaper, "I would look back and say Cappagh was probably our best", though some sources are sceptical about his claim.
The 1991 Cappagh killings was a gun attack by the loyalist Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF) on the 3rd of March 1991 in the village of Cappagh, County Tyrone, Northern Ireland. A unit of the UVF's Mid-Ulster Brigade drove to the staunchly republican village and shot dead three Provisional IRA members and a Catholic civilian at Boyle's Bar.
On the evening of Sunday the 3rd of March 1991, a unit of the Ulster Volunteer Force's Mid-Ulster Brigade drove into the heartland of the East Tyrone IRA, intent on wiping out an entire IRA unit that was based in the County Tyrone village of Cappagh.One team of the UVF men waited outside Boyle's Bar, whilst a second team waited on the outskirts of the town.At 10.30 p.m. when a car pulled-up in the carpark outside the bar, the UVF gunmen opened fire with vz. 58 assault rifles, killing Provisional IRA volunteers John Quinn (23), Dwayne O'Donnell (17) and Malcolm Nugent (20).The victims and car were riddled with bullets. According to author Thomas G. Mitchell, Quinn, O’Donnell and Nugent were part of an IRA Active Service Unit (ASU).The gunmen then attempted to enter the pub but were unable to after the civilians inside realised what was happening and barricaded the door. Unable to get into the bar, a UVF gunman shot through a high open toilet window killing local civilian, Thomas Armstrong (50) and badly wounding a 21-year-old man. Their intended target, IRA commander Brian Arthurs, escaped with his life by crouching behind the bar during the shooting.According to the Conflict Archive on the Internet (CAIN), the three IRA volunteers had only chosen to go to the pub "on the spur of the moment", thus they were unlikely to have been the UVF's original target.
Although nobody was ever charged in connection with the killings, it was widely believed by nationalists and much of the press that the attack had been planned and led by Billy Wright, the leader of the Mid-Ulster Brigade's Portadown unit. Wright himself took credit for this and boasted to The Guardian newspaper, "I would look back and say Cappagh was probably our best", though some sources are sceptical about his claim.
