Brendan Bik McFarlane, who has died aged 74, was best known in republican circles as the officer commanding in the H-Blocks during the 1981 hunger strikes and for his role in the Maze prison escape of September 1983.
Sinn Féin leader Mary Lou McDonald described him on Friday as a “great patriot who lived his life for the freedom and unity of Ireland”.
The families of those affected by his IRA activities may think otherwise.
On August 13th, 1975, McFarlane was involved in the Bayardo Bar massacre on the Shankill Road in Belfast.
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Then aged 23, he and two others, Peter Christopher Skeet Hamilton (22) and Séamus Joseph Clarke (19) carried out a bomb and gun attack on the pub they suspected of being used by UVF members.
Two civilians were machine-gunned to death outside the pub while three more died in the subsequent explosion which injured dozens of people.
McFarlane and his accomplices were quickly apprehended and were jailed for life. McFarlane was also convicted of IRA membership and given a further two-year concurrent sentence.
He was not chosen for the hunger strike because of his murder convictions, according to David Beresford, the author of the 1987 book Ten Men Dead about the strike.
McFarlane could potentially have been a “one-man public relations disaster” as he was perceived to be a “sectarian mass-murderer”, Beresford wrote.
McFarlane was one of the ringleaders among 38 prisoners who escaped from the Maze Prison in September 1983. He led a number of escapees on foot across the Border into the Republic.
Just two months later, in November 1983, the IRA kidnapped businessman Don Tidey. He was kept in a hideout in Derrada Wood outside Ballinamore until December 16th of that year when it was discovered by a search party involving gardaí and army personnel.
Pte Patrick Kelly and Recruit Garda Gary Sheehan were shot dead by the IRA gang when they came across the hideout 23 days after Tidey’s abduction. The gang also shot and seriously wounded Det Sgt Donie Kelleher before fleeing.
McFarlane was spotted around Leitrim at the time of the kidnapping along with other Maze escapees who were in safe houses. He was named by gardaí as a suspect in the aftermath of the events of Derrada Woods even before forensic evidence confirmed that his fingerprints were found in the hideout.
A garda at the scene later identified McFarlane as one of the gunmen who shot directly at him during the escape.
In 1986, McFarlane was arrested in Amsterdam and extradited to jail in Northern Ireland where he was sentenced to a further five years for his Maze escape.
Gardaí decided not to pursue the case against McFarlane over Derrada Woods while he was still in jail in the North. However, in January 1998, he was arrested when gardaí boarded a bus at Dromad, Co Louth. They charged him with falsely imprisoning Tidey, possession of a firearm with intent to endanger life and possession of a firearm for an unlawful purpose at Derrada Wood.
What followed was one of the most protracted legal battles in State history which went on for 10 years and involved appeals to the High Court and Supreme Court. During several court hearings McFarlane refused to say where he had been from September 1983 until he was arrested by Dutch police in December 1986.
Eventually, his trial began in June 2008. The State’s case was that McFarlane had said in custody: “I was there, you can prove that, but I will not talk about it”, and that he later said, “I am prepared for the big one”.
This alleged confession at Dundalk Garda station 10 years previously had been taken under the norms for evidence at the time. However, it could not be admitted as evidence in 2008, according to the three-member Special Criminal Court.
McFarlane’s fingerprints had also been found on three items recovered by gardaí from the hideout: a milk carton, plastic container and cooking pot.
Gardaí lost these items, though their legal representatives successfully argued in court that the fingerprint evidence had been photographed and was therefore admissible.
Nevertheless, the prosecution decided not to pursue the case and McFarlane was released.
In September 2010, the European Court of Human Rights ruled that he was entitled to monetary relief from the State for the delays in bringing him to trial. He was awarded €17,000.
Since his original release from prison in 1997, McFarlane married and had three children. He was a well-known ballad singer in republican clubs and pubs around Belfast and did several interviews with friendly media concerning the H-Blocks and the Maze escape though not about Derrada Wood.
In 2021, during the Covid-19 pandemic, McFarlane sang songs at an online St Patrick’s Day concert organised by Sinn Féin at which both Ms McDonald and Michelle O’Neill both spoke.
In response, David Kelly, son of Private Patrick Kelly, wrote a letter to the Belfast Telegraph protesting at his appearance.
“The acquittal of Brendan McFarlane on one charge of false imprisonment and two firearms charges in June of 2008 in the kidnapping of Don Tidey does not take away from the fact that he has never given an adequate explanation to a matter,” he stated.
“He has not explained why his fingerprints were found to be present at the scene in Derrada Woods, Co Leitrim.
“Therefore, you can appreciate how distraught I personally felt to see Mr McFarlane topping the bill of an online Sinn Féin St Patrick’s Day concert in recent days when my father has missed out on so many life celebrations, including St Patrick’s Day, these past thirty-seven years.”
In preparation for our book The Kidnapping published in 2023, my co-author Tommy Conlon and I sent McFarlane a letter seeking answers to several questions related to Derrada Wood. He did not respond.
