Search to begin for remains of Capt Robert Nairac, murdered by IRA in 1977

A search is to begin for the remains of a British army captain and undercover officer who was kidnapped, murdered and secretly buried by the IRA in 1977.

Capt Robert Nairac was kidnapped by the IRA while on an undercover operation in The Three Steps pub in Dromintee in south Armagh close to the border. After a struggle he was taken across the border to a field in Ravensdale woods area in north Louth where he was beaten up and questioned before being murdered.

His body has never been found and the Grenadier Guard is considered to be one of 17 people known as the “disappeared” who were killed and secretly buried by the republican paramilitary group during Northern Ireland’s Troubles.

In 2019, a preliminary examination of a site at Ravensdale Forest in County Louth was carried out.

The Independent Commission for the Location of Victims’ Remains (ICLVR), which has located the remains of a number of the “disappeared”, said it would be its first search for Capt Nairac.

It is to take place in the Faughart area, also in County Louth.

Jon Hill, the lead investigator of the ICVR, said that while Capt Nairac was one of the highest profile of the disappeared, they have had “very little to go on”.

“We believe that we do now have sufficient credible information to warrant a search,” he said.

It is unclear what new information has been passed on to the commission but former paramilitary members can give details to the ICLVR without fear of legal consequences under the terms of legislation that was enacted in both the UK and Ireland when the body was set up.

The commission is not saying where the search is taking place other than it will be on less than an acre of private farm land in the vicinity of the Hill of Faughart 14th-century battle site in north Louth.

As a result, the ICLVR said the search for Capt Nairac’s remains may result in finding other historical and archaeological items.

Hill said: “ I want to make it clear that neither the landowner nor the tenant have any connection whatsoever with our decision to search in this particular location.”

Capt Nairac was born to an English mother and a father of French Mauritian origins, and was educated at Ampleforth and Oxford and graduated from Sandhurst. He did four tours of duty in Northern Ireland and his high-profile kidnapping and murder gave rise to all sorts of rumour and speculation including – falsely – that his remains were put through a meat grinder.

In 1979, Nairac was posthumously awarded the George Cross after reportedly refusing to break during his torture.

Three men were convicted of his murder, a fourth man was convicted of manslaughter, a fifth of kidnapping and a sixth for withholding information.

A seventh man wanted in connection with the murder fled to the US and never returned to Northern Ireland.

There have also been several unproven allegations that he colluded with loyalist paramilitaries in the murder of three members of the popular Miami showband in 1975 and in the Dublin-Monaghan bombs in 1974 in which 34 people lost their lives.

But the late Geoff Knupfer, the previous lead investigator of the ICLVR, said there was no evidence of Capt Nairac’s involvement in collusion.

The Catholic archbishop of Armagh, Eamon Martin, earlier this year at a special mass for the disappeared reiterated his call for those with any information to help the families of Capt Nairac and three other men whose remains have yet to be found to come forward so that the murdered men can have a Christian burial.

Capt Nairac was survived by two sisters and the ICLVR says the Nairac family was being kept informed about developments.

The ICLVR said the search would not be time limited but it did not anticipate that it would be protracted.

The three other men whose remains have yet to be located are Joe Lynskey, Columba McVeigh and Seamus Maguire.

The commission has again appealed for anyone with information to contact it, saying anything they reveal would be treated in the strictest confidence.