Who was Robert Nairac and what happened to him?

The authors of Lost Lives, the volume which records the dead of the Troubles, are in no doubt as to the significance of Robert Nairac.
“One of the most controversial and intriguing figures of the Troubles,” is how his lengthy entry is introduced. In the almost 50 years since he was abducted and killed by the IRA, “Captain Nairac”, as he was known, “has developed an indelible reputation as a mysterious figure”.
Nairac was a captain in the Grenadier Guards working undercover when abducted from the Three Steps Bar, Dromintee, south Armagh and taken across the Border to Ravensdale Forest near Dundalk where he was beaten and shot.
He has remained a mystery since; for decades he has been one of only two of the Disappeared — 17 people killed and buried secretly by paramilitaries during the Troubles — for whom there was no accurate, or presumed accurate, burial location. Until now, that is. On Monday, the first search for Nairac’s remains began on a one-acre site in the Faughart area of Co Louth.
“Robert Nairac is one of the highest profile Disappeared and yet his case is one in which we have had very little to go on,” said lead investigator with the Independent Commission for the Location of Victims’ Remains Jon Hill.
[ ‘Painstaking’ search under way for remains of British undercover operative Robert NairacOpens in new window ]
“We’ve never had information that could tell us where he was buried, where his remains were taken, so we’ve not been able to undertake any searches. Over the years information has been provided to the commission and it’s constantly being assessed and evaluated as time goes on [and] we have got to a stage now where, thankfully, we feel there is suitable credible information that means we can undertake that search.”
That search area comprises “three or four sections” in an area of about an acre. “We have pieces of information that relate to specific areas of ground … no one has come along with an X marks the spot, that is where Robert Nairac is buried, but it’s an amalgamation of information we’ve had over many years, and more recent information, that suggests this is where he will be.”
If Nairac’s remains are discovered, it will answer at least one of the questions that have continued to swirl around the life and death of this 29-year-old soldier.
Nairac was Oxford-educated and a devout Catholic, a well-known figure in South Armagh, yet his role was unclear. Was he a liaison officer with the RUC or an undercover operative, or even a member of the SAS — as the Provisional IRA claimed he confessed before his death?
An Irish Times article of November 1977 described how security sources on both sides of the Border viewed Nairac as a “daring, almost ‘reckless’ type of figure who appears as a blend of the fantasies of Kipling and Lawrence of Arabia, going into the streets, the clubs and the pubs of the most republican parts of the North, where he would stand among the rebels who knew him as ‘Captain Nairac’ and sing with gusto such songs as The Broad Black Brimmer of the IRA.”
What is known is that on the evening of May 14th, 1977, Nairac left the British army base at Bessbrook with a modified Browning pistol hidden under his civilian jacket and drove a specially equipped, unmarked car to the Three Steps Inn.
He spent the evening drinking, but suspicions had been aroused; when he left the pub he was attacked in the car park and there was a struggle before he was bundled into a car and taken across the Border.
Since then, many claims and counterclaims have been made about Nairac, including that he was involved in atrocities such as the 1974 Dublin and Monaghan bombings and the 1975 Miami Showband killings.
It led the then-lead investigator of the Independent Commission for the Location of Victims’ Remains, Geoff Knupfer, to take the unusual step of addressing these “wild allegations” because he believed they “may well be putting off people who have information from coming forward because they believe the myths”.
“He [Nairac] was a very junior officer and would not have had free rein. Neither was he tasked with handling informants, sources as part of that role,” said Knupfer. Suggestions that Nairac was a member of the SAS were “completely untrue”.
There is no indication Nairac was involved in any of the incidents to which he had been linked, as in all but one there was “ample evidence” he was not in Ireland at the time. In January 1975, when John Francis Green was murdered in Castleblaney, Co Monaghan, Nairac was in Derry.
His body was not destroyed in a local meat processing factory and this rumour was created as a “distraction”, said Knupfer.
In Co Louth, the search is now under way. “We have the skills and we have the ability, we have the experience to be able to recover his remains if he’s there. If he’s not there, then, of course, we stand no chance. But we’re hopeful,” said Hill.
Nairac’s family have been kept informed. “They hope Robert can be found and brought home for a Christian burial.”