Robert William McConnell (c. 1944 – 5 April 1976), was an Ulster loyalist paramilitary who allegedly carried out or was an accomplice to a number of sectarian attacks and killings, although he never faced any charges or convictions. McConnell served part-time as a corporal in the 2nd Battalion Ulster Defence Regiment (UDR), and was a suspected member of the Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF).
In 1993, Yorkshire Television broadcast a programme The Hidden Hand: the Forgotten Massacre, and the narrator named McConnell as a member of one of the two UVF bomb teams that perpetrated three car bomb attacks in Dublin on 17 May 1974, which killed 26 people. The programme also linked him to British military intelligence and Captain Robert Nairac, stating that McConnell and key figures from the bombing unit were controlled before and after the bombings by Nairac. RUC Special Patrol Group (SPG) officer John Weir alleged that McConnell had been part of the UVF unit that shot leading Provisional IRA man John Francis Green to death in January 1975. Weir also alleged that McConnell had been one of the gunmen in the Reavey family shootings, as well as having had a key role in the bomb and gun attack against Donnelly's Bar the previous month. These were part of a series of sectarian attacks and killings that were carried out by the group of loyalist extremists known as the Glenanne gang, of which McConnell was a member. This gang comprised rogue elements of the Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC), the SPG, Ulster Defence Regiment (UDR), and the UVF's Mid-Ulster Brigade, which from 1975 to the early 1990s was commanded by Robin "the Jackal" Jackson. Jackson was also implicated by the Hidden Hand in the Dublin and Monaghan bombings, and he was reportedly involved in the Green assassination.
McConnell was shot to death outside his home by the IRA. Weir maintained in his affidavit that was published in the Barron Report (which was the findings of the official investigation into the 1974 car bombings commissioned by Irish Supreme Court Justice Henry Barron), that McConnell had been set up by British military intelligence. According to Weir, whose information came from a republican informer, now deceased, military intelligence passed on vital information about McConnell to the IRA, who then ordered his killing.
Bombings and shootings
Glenanne gang and Dublin car bombings
McConnell was born in Northern Ireland in about 1944 and grew up in a Church of Ireland family. He later served as a part-time member of the 2nd Battalion UDR, holding the rank of corporal. This battalion, due to its location and patrol territory in the hazardous South Armagh area known as "bandit country", suffered the highest casualty rate of the entire regiment. The Ulster Defence Regiment (UDR) was the largest infantry regiment in the British Army.
Members of extremist groupings such as the UVF managed to join the UDR despite the vetting process. Their purpose in doing so was to obtain weapons, training and intelligence. Vetting procedures were carried out jointly by Army Intelligence and the RUC's Special Branch and if no intelligence was found to suggest unsuitability individuals were passed for recruitment and would remain as soldiers until the commanding officer was provided with intelligence enabling him to remove soldiers with paramilitary links or sympathies. In the regimental history of the UDR the author commented on men like McConnell and (referring to another individual) suggested that, "he may have regarded himself as a true blue loyalist but had so little understanding of the meaning of loyalty that he would betray his regiment and his comrades....."
He was also a member of the Orange Order's Cladybeg Faith Defenders LOL (Loyal orange lodge) 305b, Newtownhamilton District, and a Sir Knight in the Guiding Star Royal Black Preceptory No.1133; he held the office of Preceptory Lecturer at the time of his death. The Orange Order and Royal Black Preceptory are both Protestant fraternal societies. McConnell attended St. John's Church of Ireland in Newtownhamilton, where he was also a church worker.