First search begins for undercover British Army officer abducted and murdered by IRA in 1977

Remains of ‘Disappeared’ Capt Robert Nairac have not been found since he was killed by republicans in Co Louth nearly 50 years ago

The first search for an undercover British Army officer who was abducted and murdered by the Irish Republican Army (IRA) almost 50 years ago has begun in remote countryside near the Irish border.
Capt Robert Nairac was kidnapped by a gang of republicans while on an undercover operation in a pub in south Armagh and taken across the border to Flurry Bridge in Co Louth, where he was killed.
Capt Nairac, whose remains were never found, is considered to be part of a group of 16 people, known as the Disappeared, who were killed and secretly buried by paramilitary groups.
His friend Col Herbert Jones led the initial search operation before he was himself killed in action at the Battle of Goose Green in 1982 during the Falklands War, for which he was posthumously awarded the Victoria Cross.
The first major search for Capt Nairac is being carried out by the Independent Commission for the Location of Victims’ Remains (ICLVR), which has located the remains of a number of the Disappeared.
Oxford-educated Capt Nairac joined the Grenadier Guards in 1971 after leaving school and was posted to Northern Ireland two years later during the Troubles.
After doing outreach work in Belfast, he became involved in intelligence work and was sent to south Armagh, a dangerous posting for a British Army officer of any stripe.
From June 1976, he began to provoke the disapproval of his seniors as he took to visiting republican pubs in disguise in a bid to gather information on IRA members.
On the night of May 14 1977, Capt Nairac went to the Three Steps pub in Dromintee in what some have said was an undercover mission to meet a potential informer.
Posing as a Belfast republican called Danny McErlaine, it is said he had a few pints of Guinness before blowing his cover after getting up on stage with the local band and singing three republican ballads.
It is thought that junior IRA men present suspected that, given that his Belfast accent was less than flawless, he was either an undercover British soldier or a loyalist planning an attack on the pub.
He was then attacked in the pub car park, losing the Browning pistol he had on him, and then bundled into a car and driven across the border.
There, he was interrogated but maintained his cover – before he was marched to a nearby field to be executed. It is said that he even staged a last-ditch attempt to wrest the revolver that delivered the fatal head shot from his killer, but failed.
Jon Hill, the lead investigator for the ICLVR, said that while information about the location of Capt Nairac’s remains had been passed to the commission over the years, they were now at a point where they had enough credible information to undertake a search.
It comes after a damning report earlier this year found the actions of Stakeknife, the British Army’s top spy within the IRA, probably cost more lives than they saved.
The notorious double agent’s actions should have rung alarm bells among senior Army figures. However, he was treated as the “crown jewel” of British intelligence. 
The spy, who is believed to have been Freddie Scappaticci, a former bricklayer, worked secretly for the British Army while he was part of the IRA’s internal security unit, which tortured and killed suspected informants. He died of natural illnesses in April last year, aged 77.
Mr Hill said: “The land is farmland and is on the Hill of Faughart, which some people might know as an old battlefield site.
“That has introduced into our thought processes, and reasoning, a number of factors we have had to take into account. Not least because there will be or may be archaeology there or may be remains that we may come across.
“We have had conversations with National Monument Ireland for advice and support in what we are doing.”
He said archaeologists would assist at the search site.
“Having looked at the mapping, we know that there has been human remains discovered in and around all of that area, particularly when the motorway [M1] was being built,” he added.
He said that the discovery of other remains “isn’t beyond the realms”.
“We should get a good indication as to where Robert Nairac’s remains might be and then we will recover them in the normal fashion,” he added.
Mr Hill said that while Capt Nairac was one of the highest profile of the Disappeared, they had had “very little to go on”.
“In almost every other case, we have [had] engagement with the republican movement, former people who have supported [us] throughout the process to recover all of the Disappeared,” he said.
“Unfortunately, they haven’t been able to in relation to Robert Nairac. There are a number of reasons why that might be, because some of the significant people who might have been involved would now be dead.
“It might equally be the case that some people don’t want to talk about it for various reasons, or it may be that people’s memories are fading and their recollection is not as good.”
Mr Hill said that Capt Nairac’s family were aware of the search, which he described as a “lengthy process”.
“The family are aware and they are philosophical,” he said.
“They are very private people and they have no wish to make any comment other than they hope Robert can be found and brought home for a Christian burial.”
He said that the search should not last beyond a few months because the ground was stable.
“I’m not 100 per cent confident of finding his remains but it’s more a case that we are hopeful. We have the skills and ability and the experience to be able to recover his remains if he is there,” Mr Hill added.
The ICLVR has also reissued an appeal for information about other remaining Disappeared cases, including Joe Lynskey, Columba McVeigh and Seamus Maguire.
“All information is treated in the strictest confidence,” it said.
The ICLVR can be contacted by telephone on 00353 1 602 8655, by email at [email protected] or by post at ICLVR PO Box 10827.
Crimestoppers can be contacted on 0800 555 111 or the untraceable anonymous online form can be found on crimestoppers-uk.org.