Ex-IRA Member Vows to Continue Search for Missing Soldier Captain Robert Nairac

Belfast, November 7: Former IRA member Martin McAllister has pledged to continue his efforts to locate the remains of Captain Robert Nairac, the British Army officer abducted and murdered in South Armagh in 1977. McAllister described the unresolved case as “an open running sore” in the community, expressing his determination to help bring closure to the Nairac family.

Captain Nairac, an officer of the Grenadier Guards, is among the group known as The Disappeared — individuals abducted, killed, and secretly buried by paramilitary groups during the Troubles. The Independent Commission for the Location of Victims’ Remains (ICLVR) conducted its first official search for his body last year in County Louth, but the operation ended without success.

A new BBC documentary, The Disappearance of Captain Nairac, revisits his story through the voices of his friends, army colleagues, and locals in South Armagh who nicknamed him “Danny Boy.”

On the night of May 14, 1977, Captain Nairac is believed to have entered the Three Steps Bar in Drumintee, posing as a Belfast republican under the alias Danny McErlean. Dressed in a donkey jacket and jeans, he sang rebel songs and attempted to engage locals in conversation about crossing the border without encountering army checkpoints. Witnesses recall that his behaviour drew suspicion. He was overpowered outside the bar, taken across the border, and shot.

A man allegedly present in the car told the documentary that the group contacted a local IRA Officer Commanding, who, reportedly intoxicated, ordered Nairac’s execution. The witness claimed he pretended to be a priest in an attempt to elicit a confession before walking away and hearing gunshots moments later.

The same man expressed remorse, saying he hoped Captain Nairac’s remains would one day be returned to his sisters, adding that he wished to apologise for his role in the events.

Former local councillor Seamus Murphy recalled Captain Nairac as a man who stood out in Crossmaglen — greeting locals in Irish and displaying a deep interest in Irish history. “He had a certain swagger and arrogance about him,” Murphy said. “Everyone knew he wasn’t an ordinary soldier, but they thought he was reckless and possibly dangerous.”

An anonymous former army intelligence officer emphasised Nairac’s importance in South Armagh — an area known as one of the IRA’s strongest strongholds — describing his ground-level intelligence work as “absolutely imperative.” Nairac’s biographer, Alistair Kerr, said the captain believed he was on the verge of a major intelligence breakthrough the night he disappeared.

A former RUC intelligence officer described Nairac as having “a touch of 007 about him,” often taking extreme risks. He suggested that on the night of his disappearance, Nairac was pursuing a lead through a woman closely connected to a senior IRA figure.

Close friend Jemima Parry-Jones told the BBC that Nairac’s love for Ireland and his desire to help end the Troubles often drove him to take dangerous chances. “He wanted to be part of stopping it,” she said.

McAllister, who was imprisoned at the time of the abduction, said he later learned that those responsible were IRA sympathisers rather than active members, and that they fled shortly after the killing. He also dismissed many of the rumours surrounding Nairac’s alleged involvement in other atrocities, calling them baseless. “Every imaginable horror has been laid at his door — without proof,” McAllister said.

He continues to gather information from locals in an effort to piece together the events of that night. “This man was a soldier, and I was his enemy,” McAllister reflected. “But to disappear someone is something I never agreed with. No one should be left without a grave to visit. This man should be back with his family.”

Describing his mission as a “matter of honour,” McAllister vowed not to abandon the search for Captain Nairac’s remains.