Teen killer Pat McGeown was 17 when he shot Jean
Pat McGeown leaves court after being cleared of murder
Jean McConville was shot dead by IRA man
Disappeared victim Jean McConville was shot dead by a teenage gunman who became a high-profile IRA hunger striker and later a leading member of Sinn Fein, the Sunday World can reveal.
Today, we unmask Mrs McConville’s killer, together with previously unknown details of ‘The Disappeared’ scandal, which now threatens the political career of Gerry Adams.
Mother-of-10 Jean was abducted from her home in the Divis area of Belfast 41 years ago.
Today the Sunday World can reveal that the IRA man who shot Jean McConville in the head seconds before her body was smuggled out of the city for secret burial, was Belfast IRA volunteer Pat ‘Beag’ McGeown, who died in 1996.
When Jean McConville’s son Jim was shown details of the Sunday World inquiry into the death of his mother yesterday, together with the name of her killer, he displayed neither shock nor surprise.
“I was recently approached by grass roots republicans who were sympathetic to the McConville family. I was given some details of what happened and only two weeks ago I gave Pat McGeown’s name to my solicitor,” he said.
The Sunday World has spoken to a number of former members of the Provisional IRA who said they were speaking out now because Sinn Fein leader Gerry Adams continues to deny he had any part in the events leading up to the murder.
They also said they were outraged when, on the BBC/RTE TV documentary ‘The Disappeared’, Adams branded IRA hunger striker Brendan ‘the Dark’ Hughes a liar.
“The TV programme was on the money. The murder of Jean McConville was a war crime. It is impossible to dodge the issue any more. Gerry Adams should come clean for the sake of the republican movement,” said a former IRA man, who is still a committed republican.
McGeown, who died of a heart attack in 1996, was just 17 years old when he pulled the trigger on the gun which snuffed out the life of the young widow and mother to 10 children, the eldest being just 15.
After the McConville killing, McGeown’s terrorist career went from strength to strength. At one stage he was Officer Commanding the IRA in Belfast.
Three years after McConville’s murder, McGeown was arrested, charged and convicted of bombing the Europa Hotel in Belfast and membership of the IRA. He was sent to jail at Long Kesh for 15 years.
In 1981, McGeown took part in the hunger strike which claimed the lives of 10 republicans, including Bobby Sands. Both men are buried just yards apart in Milltown Cemetery.
McGeown refused food for 47 days, but when he slipped into a coma his distraught wife ordered doctors to feed him through a tube.
After his release from prison, McGeown courted controversy again when in 1988 he was filmed directing a black taxi containing two British soldiers seconds before they were shot dead by the IRA near Casement Park in Belfast. Serious charges in connection with the murder were later dropped.
McGeown also joined Sinn Fein and was elected on to Belfast City Council. However, his days on hunger strike had taken its toll on his health and he died of heart attack in 1996, aged 44.
Today we can further reveal that republican icon Madge McConville (now deceased and no relation), who headed Cumann na mBan – the female section of the IRA in Belfast at that time – also played a central role in Jean McConville’s abduction.
In the Autumn of 1972 the Provo leadership in Belfast were seriously concerned about information being passed to British soldiers by local girls attending discos in the army barracks at Mulhouse Street, off the Grosvenor Road.
Five local girls were in the frame for working as British agents. And the IRA was determined to make an example of one of them.
Jean McConville’s name was added to a list, mainly, we were told, because she had been born a Protestant in east Belfast and as she had only been in the lower Falls district for two years, she had no family roots in the area.
The Cumann na mBan OC - who had just turned 50 at the time, personally gave the orders to the younger women under her command. Madge McConville was working from orders given to her by the IRA leadership in the city.
Jean McConville was dragged from her maisonette home as her distraught and terrified children clung to her clothes.
Another young woman was also being held and interrogated in the house by a team of IRA men. Some of them, according to our sources, were members of an elite group known as ‘the Unknowns’. And according to our sources, ‘the Unknowns’ we were all personally appointed by Gerry Adams.
Jean McConville’s remains were eventually discovered by a man walking his dog on a Co. Louth beach in 2003.
One of the former IRA men who spoke to us this week added: “The IRA knew it got the wrong person and a decision was taken to ‘disappear’ her to stop talk. Gerry Adams knows all about this. What he said on the TV this week was a disgrace.”