A Scots photographer has revealed how he was called in to cover the only paramilitary IRA funeral ever held on the UK mainland.
Brian Anderson, 55, received a late-night call at his Glasgow home from Salford gangster Paul Massey.
Told to drive to Manchester, he came face to face with hardened gangland figures and paramilitaries at the funeral of the former IRA member, Kevin ‘Tiny’ Donaghey. Later draped in the tricolour, Donaghey’s coffin was carried through the streets of Salford by balaclava-wearing pallbearers.
Mourners then fired a gun salute as the coffin was lowered into the grave.
Anderson, 55, said: “Paul Massey was Mr Big in Manchester. He phoned me and asked if I could be in Salford for sunrise because he had something really good for my book.
“I jumped at the chance. When I arrived I got taken into a room full of Irish and Salford guys. There was a guy in a coffin and people were crying. I was told, ‘Take the f***ing picture, wee man. Don’t take pictures of the women crying and keep it out of Ireland and out of the press’.”
Johnny Adair on Troon beach ©Brian Anderson
The funeral was planned for Donaghey, who had been suspected of killing soldiers in Northern Ireland. He got a paramilitary funeral in mainland Britain which had never been done before and that was what I captured,” Brian said.
“They were carrying the coffin through the streets of Manchester draped in a tricolour. I noticed some of them giving me looks as if something was about to go down. A gun went off and whizzed by my ear. They didn’t tell me they were going to do it. Someone behind me had fired a volley of shots then threw the gun on the coffin.
“There were all these guys in balaclavas. I turned around and said, ‘I missed the picture. Can you do it again?’ They were like, ‘No. It’s done’. They had tried to tell me but I didn’t realise what was going on. But they eventually agreed to shoot a gun for me to get on camera. You don’t realise the danger at the time but there have been lots of dangerous incidents with guns being pulled out.”
Donaghey had been implicated in a 2005 kidnap trial which linked him to the deaths of Irish police officers during the Troubles.
Mad Dog Johnny Adair book
After leaving Derry, he immersed himself in Manchester’s underworld and stood trial for kidnapping and torturing a businessman.
Having died suddenly in 2008, aged 35, the military funeral was organised by his criminal and terrorist associates.
Brian said: “I was told everybody knows that gangland figures and paramilitaries go hand in hand and here was the proof.”
Looking back on the late night call from Massey, Brian said: “Paul got assassinated on his doorstep. A lot of people I have photographed ended up being murdered. I’m like the grim reaper or at least that is how it felt. It shows I must have been in the thick of a lot of guys who were active.
“Massey ended up being machine-gunned to death. In interviews he was saying he pitied anybody who assassinated him and sure enough, the gang split into two camps who went to war.
“Massey had been the mediator in amongst it all then he got shot on his doorstep when the younger team assassinated him. Massey used to call me up in the middle of the night talking about life.
Paul Massey
(Image: Manchester Evening News)
“I wondered why he did that and then I realised it was because he saw me as a normal guy. He talked about his mother who had died. I know the guys I’m photographing are notorious but I don’t see that side of them. Every time I went to Manchester he made sure I was alright.”
As well as Donaghey, several Irish paramilitaries relocated to Britain in the wake of the Good Friday agreement, including Northern Irish loyalist and UDA Brigadier, Johnny ‘Mad Dog’ Adair.
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The leader of the Ulster Defence Association’s notorious C company and one of the most feared gang bosses in the history of Northern Ireland’s Troubles escaped an IRA assassination attempt in 1993, which resulted in the death of nine people in a fish and chip shop.
Months later he was jailed for 16 years after being convicted of directing terrorism. After just three years he was back on the streets, having been released under the Good Friday agreement.
During his freedom he became locked in a bloody feud that led to him becoming a hate figure to his former comrades that resulted in a spate of tit-for-tat killings. Hounded out of Belfast after the vicious feud, Adair continues to live on the Ayrshire coast.
Anderson said: “I photographed Adair a few times including when he and a few others went to Troon as part of the Good Friday agreement. He came to Scotland because there were Scottish and Irish parliamentary connections and felt safe in Troon. I met Adair loads of times. When his son Jonathan died, I was the only photographer to photograph that funeral.
“They had me covering it for the Irish press and had banned everybody else.
“I also photographed him for the cover of his bookMad Dog. There was an uproar in Northern Ireland about the cover because he was posing with a gun. I don’t know how he would have felt had he known he was having his picture taken by a Celtic fan. I wasn’t going to be the one to tell him.”
Brian’s book Faces 2 is available from www.glasgoweyes.com
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