RUC man’s cold-blooded killing in 1978 subject of top journalist’s new book
Saturday, April 22, 1978, off-duty RUC photographer Millar Mcallister (36) was murdered at his Lisburn home in front of his son.
One of hundreds of killings that peppered the Troubles in the Seventies, it provides the central focus for a new book that takes a different look at our murderous past.
Written by former Guardian journalist Ian Cobain, who also worked for The Irish Times and The Times during a career in investigative journalism, Anatomy of a Killing: Life and Death on a Divided Island will hit bookshelves in November.
At the time it was alleged those responsible for the killing had found Mr Mcallister’s details in a pigeon fanciers’ magazine, and on the first day of the new racing season two men, described as young and wearing anoraks, approached the Lisburn property.
Having been invited around the back of Mr Mcallister’s house to talk about pigeons, the RUC man was shot in front of one of his two sons.
Anatomy of a Killing explores the story of the IRA unit that carried out the murder.
Millar Mcallister, married with two children, lived at Woodland Park, not far from Lagan Valley Hospital.
Details of the attack said that at around 12.50pm Constable
Mcallister was at home in his garden, waiting for his pigeons to return.
On the pretence of seeing his birds, the two men called at his bungalow, and after a few minon utes chatting with the policeman in the back of his house, one of them produced a pistol and opened fire without warning.
Constable Mcallister was struck several times in the head and body, and despite his injuries he managed to stagger back into his kitchen.
He died a short time later. He had joined the RUC in 1961 and was described as a highly popular member of the force.
In 1971 he was appointed to the photographic branch at RUC headquarters.
His two sons were eight and 12 at the time.
One of them ran to a neighbour’s house for help, as Mr Mcallister’s wife was out shopping when her husband was murdered.
Over four decades later Cobain has set out to document the hours leading up to the killing, and the months and years of violence, attrition and rebellion surrounding it and place it in the wider context of the Troubles years.
Drawing on interviews with those most closely involved, as well as court files, police notes, military intelligence reports, IRA strategy papers, memoirs and Government records, the book is described as “a unique perspective on the Troubles, and a revelatory work of investigative journalism”.
Published by London based Granta Books, Anatomy of a Killing: Life and Death on a Divided Island, will be available from November 4.