William Marchant (loyalist)
Encyclopedia
William "Frenchie" Marchant (c.1948 – 28 April 1987) was a Northern Irish
loyalist
and a middle-ranking volunteer
in the Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF). He was on a Garda
list of suspects in the 1974 Dublin car bombings
which left a total of 26 people dead, and close to 300 injured. Marchant was allegedly the leader of the Belfast
UVF unit known as "Freddie and the Dreamers" which hijacked and stole the three cars which were used in the bombings. Nine days after the bombings he was arrested and interned at the Maze Prison in relation to the bombings. When questioned by detectives regarding the latter he refused to answer. He was never brought to trial due to lack of evidence.
Marchant held the rank of major in the UVF's A Company, 1st Battalion Belfast Brigade. He was shot to death by a Provisional IRA
volunteer from a passing car as he stood outside "The Eagle" chip shop below the offices where the UVF Brigade Staff had their headquarters on the Shankill Road.
Marchant was born in Belfast
, Northern Ireland in about 1948. He grew up in the loyalist Shankill Road neighbourhood and was brought up in the Protestant religion. Some time prior to 1974, he joined the Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF), which was an illegal loyalist paramilitary organisation. He held the rank of major in its A Company, 1st Battalion Belfast Brigade. Marchant's nickname was "Frenchie".
Two units from the UVF's Belfast and Mid-Ulster Brigades
exploded three no-warning car bombs in Dublin's city centre on 17 May 1974, which was the third day of the Ulster Workers Council Strike. This was a general strike in Northern Ireland called by hard-line loyalists and unionists
, who opposed the Sunningdale Agreement
and the Northern Ireland Assembly
which had proposed their sharing political power with nationalists
and planned a greater role for the Irish Republic in the governance of Northern Ireland. The explosions occurred almost simultaneously during evening rush hour resulting in the deaths of 26 people, mostly young women; close to 300 people were injured, many maimed and scarred for life. According to former British soldier and psychological warfare
operative Colin Wallace
, the bombings had been organised by Billy Hanna
, the Mid-Ulster Brigade's commander at the time. The three cars used in the attacks had been stolen and hijacked that morning in Belfast by a UVF unit known as "Freddie and the Dreamers" (named after the 1960s English pop group
) allegedly led by Marchant, and then, according to the Hidden Hand, driven to a farm in Glenanne, County Armagh
. This farm, which had been used to make and store the bombs, was owned by RUC
reservist James Mitchell of the Glenanne gang
. After the cars were delivered to the waiting bomb unit, the latter drove them across the border down to the Coachman's Inn pub carpark. Journalist Joe Tiernan suggested that the cars were driven directly to the North Dublin carpark, with only one stop in Portadown by one of the cars to collect David Alexander Mulholland
, one of the alleged bombers. It was at the carpark that the three bombs, which had been transported in a chicken lorry by senior Mid-Ulster UVF member Robin "the Jackal" Jackson
, were placed inside the boots of the cars by Hanna and Jackson. The cars - a metallic green 1970 model Hillman Avenger
and blue Austin 1800 Maxi - that ended up in Parnell Street
and South Leinster Street had been hijacked while the metallic blue mink Ford Escort which detonated in Talbot Street
had been stolen from Belfast's docks area. All three cars had retained their original registration numbers. In 1993 Yorkshire Television aired a documentary The Hidden Hand: The Forgotten Massacre and it named Marchant as having been on a Garda list of suspects as the leader of the gang which obtained the bomb cars.
Ninety minutes after the Dublin blasts, another car bomb exploded in Monaghan
, causing a further seven deaths. A detective from Dublin's Store Street Garda Station received confidential information that Marchant had masterminded both the Dublin and Monaghan attacks. On 26 May he was arrested by the Northern Ireland security forces under the Northern Ireland (Emergency Provision) Act 1974 and interned at the Maze Prison on an Interim Custody Order partly on suspicion of having participated in the car bombings. He was interrogated by detectives but refused to reply to any questions relating to the Dublin bombings. Marchant and the others who had also been interned as suspects in the attacks, were never brought to trial due to lack of evidence. The RUC Special Branch
, in a reply dated 23 July 1974 to an earlier Gardai enquiry regarding Marchant, stated that Marchant "was our guest for a number of hours (and CID
) but with negative result". The Barron Report which was the findings of the official investigation into the car bombings commissioned by Irish Supreme Court Justice Henry Barron
confirmed that Marchant was named in the Garda files as the leader of the gang which provided the bomb cars. Colin Wallace briefed the media without attribution identifying Marchant as the person responsible for the car hijackings and theft, based on his own information. In a written statement to Justice For the Forgotten (an organisation of victims and relatives seeking justice for the Dublin and Monaghan bombings), Wallace maintained that Marchant was "identified to [British] Army Intelligence as a Special Branch source being run by a named officer". When queried by the organisation's legal team, Wallace qualified the statement by adding:
Many years later, journalist Peter Taylor
questioned PUP politician and former senior Belfast UVF member David Ervine
about UVF motives for bombing Dublin in 1974. He replied they [UVF] were "returning the serve". Although Ervine had had nothing to do with the bombings, he said they were carried out to make Catholics in the Irish Republic suffer as Protestants in Northern Ireland had been suffering as the result of the IRA bombing campaign.
As of 2011, nobody has ever been convicted of the Dublin and Monaghan bombings.
(PUP). The hitman was an IRA volunteer. His fatal shooting was in retaliation for the UVF's killing of Larry Marley, a close friend of Sinn Féin
President Gerry Adams
and a senior IRA member from Ardoyne
, less than a month before. On 1 May 1987, Marchant was given a full UVF paramilitary funeral. The address given at his funeral service, which denounced all paramilitary organisations and their acts of violence, was afterwards praised by Roman Catholic bishop Cathal Daly. Marchant's widow later gave her permission for their son to go to the USA in a Catholic/Protestant student exchange visit.
Several months after Marchant's shooting, the UVF sought to avenge his death with an attempt on the life of Anthony "Booster" Hughes, a suspected IRA man from Ardoyne.
According to author and journalist Martin Dillon
, Marchant's daily movements leading up to his death had been unpredictable and erratic; this indicated the possibility that just before his shooting someone had alerted the IRA by telephone, advising them of Marchant's presence on the Shankill Road. The IRA would normally have kept a hit squad on standby in a neighbourhood close to where their intended target was likely to be. Marchant's killing was the third assassination carried out in the 1980s by the IRA against senior UVF members. The UVF conducted an internal inquiry in an attempt to establish whether someone within the organisation had supplied information to the IRA which had led to the killings of Marchant and the other two: Shankill Butcher
Lenny Murphy
and John Bingham
. Although the inquiry revealed that Marchant - as well as Murphy and Bingham - had quarrelled with powerful West Belfast UDA
fund-raiser James Pratt Craig
before their deaths, the UVF Brigade Staff did not consider the evidence sufficient to warrant an attack against Craig, who ran a large protection racket. According to Dillon, Marchant had been due to meet Craig outside "The Eagle" before he was shot dead. Instead of getting out of the car at the chip shop where Marchant waited, Craig got out at the Inter-City furniture shop on the corner of Conway Street. There he engaged in conversation with another person for five minutes. Within the five minutes, Marchant was gunned down just 50 yards away. In October 1988, Craig was shot to death in an East Belfast pub by the UDA (using their cover name Ulster Freedom Fighters) for "treason", claiming that he had been involved in the death of UDA leader John McMichael
, who was blown up the previous December in a booby-trap car bomb planted by the IRA.
Two years prior to his killing, Marchant had been one of the 47 people named by UVF supergrass William "Budgie Allen. Although he appeared before Belfast's Crumlin Road Crown Court, the case against him and the others collapsed when the judge decided Allen's evidence was ""totally unreliable".
At the junction of Spier's Place and the Shankill Road, there is a mural and memorial plaque commemorating William "Frenchie" Marchant.
Northern Ireland
Northern Ireland is one of the four countries of the United Kingdom. Situated in the north-east of the island of Ireland, it shares a border with the Republic of Ireland to the south and west...
loyalist
Ulster loyalism
Ulster loyalism is an ideology that is opposed to a united Ireland. It can mean either support for upholding Northern Ireland's status as a constituent part of the United Kingdom , support for Northern Ireland independence, or support for loyalist paramilitaries...
and a middle-ranking volunteer
Volunteer (Ulster loyalist)
Volunteer, abbreviated Vol., is a title used by a number of Ulster loyalist paramilitary organisations to describe their members.-History of the term volunteer in Ireland:...
in the Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF). He was on a Garda
Garda Síochána
, more commonly referred to as the Gardaí , is the police force of Ireland. The service is headed by the Commissioner who is appointed by the Irish Government. Its headquarters are located in the Phoenix Park in Dublin.- Terminology :...
list of suspects in the 1974 Dublin car bombings
Dublin and Monaghan Bombings
The Dublin and Monaghan bombings of 17 May 1974 were a series of car bombings in Dublin and Monaghan in the Republic of Ireland. The attacks killed 33 civilians and wounded almost 300 – the highest number of casualties in any single day during the conflict known as The Troubles.A loyalist...
which left a total of 26 people dead, and close to 300 injured. Marchant was allegedly the leader of the Belfast
Belfast
Belfast is the capital of and largest city in Northern Ireland. By population, it is the 14th biggest city in the United Kingdom and second biggest on the island of Ireland . It is the seat of the devolved government and legislative Northern Ireland Assembly...
UVF unit known as "Freddie and the Dreamers" which hijacked and stole the three cars which were used in the bombings. Nine days after the bombings he was arrested and interned at the Maze Prison in relation to the bombings. When questioned by detectives regarding the latter he refused to answer. He was never brought to trial due to lack of evidence.
Marchant held the rank of major in the UVF's A Company, 1st Battalion Belfast Brigade. He was shot to death by a Provisional IRA
Provisional Irish Republican Army
The Provisional Irish Republican Army is an Irish republican paramilitary organisation whose aim was to remove Northern Ireland from the United Kingdom and bring about a socialist republic within a united Ireland by force of arms and political persuasion...
volunteer from a passing car as he stood outside "The Eagle" chip shop below the offices where the UVF Brigade Staff had their headquarters on the Shankill Road.
Dublin car bombings
Belfast
Belfast is the capital of and largest city in Northern Ireland. By population, it is the 14th biggest city in the United Kingdom and second biggest on the island of Ireland . It is the seat of the devolved government and legislative Northern Ireland Assembly...
, Northern Ireland in about 1948. He grew up in the loyalist Shankill Road neighbourhood and was brought up in the Protestant religion. Some time prior to 1974, he joined the Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF), which was an illegal loyalist paramilitary organisation. He held the rank of major in its A Company, 1st Battalion Belfast Brigade. Marchant's nickname was "Frenchie".
Two units from the UVF's Belfast and Mid-Ulster Brigades
UVF Mid-Ulster Brigade
UVF Mid-Ulster Brigade formed part of the loyalist paramilitary Ulster Volunteer Force in Northern Ireland. The brigade was established in Lurgan, County Armagh in 1972 by its first commander Billy Hanna. The unit operated mainly around the Lurgan and Portadown areas. Subsequent leaders of the...
exploded three no-warning car bombs in Dublin's city centre on 17 May 1974, which was the third day of the Ulster Workers Council Strike. This was a general strike in Northern Ireland called by hard-line loyalists and unionists
Unionism in Ireland
Unionism in Ireland is an ideology that favours the continuation of some form of political union between the islands of Ireland and Great Britain...
, who opposed the Sunningdale Agreement
Sunningdale Agreement
The Sunningdale Agreement was an attempt to establish a power-sharing Northern Ireland Executive and a cross-border Council of Ireland. The Agreement was signed at the Civil Service College in Sunningdale Park located in Sunningdale, Berkshire, on 9 December 1973.Unionist opposition, violence and...
and the Northern Ireland Assembly
Northern Ireland Assembly (1973)
The Northern Ireland Assembly was a legislative assembly set up by the Government of the United Kingdom on 3 May 1973 to restore devolved government to Northern Ireland with the power-sharing Northern Ireland Executive made up of unionists and nationalists....
which had proposed their sharing political power with nationalists
Irish nationalism
Irish nationalism manifests itself in political and social movements and in sentiment inspired by a love for Irish culture, language and history, and as a sense of pride in Ireland and in the Irish people...
and planned a greater role for the Irish Republic in the governance of Northern Ireland. The explosions occurred almost simultaneously during evening rush hour resulting in the deaths of 26 people, mostly young women; close to 300 people were injured, many maimed and scarred for life. According to former British soldier and psychological warfare
Psychological warfare
Psychological warfare , or the basic aspects of modern psychological operations , have been known by many other names or terms, including Psy Ops, Political Warfare, “Hearts and Minds,” and Propaganda...
operative Colin Wallace
Colin Wallace
John Colin Wallace is a former British soldier and psychological warfare operative who was one of the members of the 'Clockwork Orange' project, which is alleged to have been an attempt to smear a number of British politicians in the early 1970s.-Early life:...
, the bombings had been organised by Billy Hanna
Billy Hanna
William Henry Wilson "Billy" Hanna MM was a high-ranking Northern Irish loyalist who founded and led the Mid-Ulster Brigade of the Ulster Volunteer Force until he was killed, allegedly by Robin Jackson, who took over command of the brigade.According to RUC Special Patrol Group officer John Weir,...
, the Mid-Ulster Brigade's commander at the time. The three cars used in the attacks had been stolen and hijacked that morning in Belfast by a UVF unit known as "Freddie and the Dreamers" (named after the 1960s English pop group
Freddie and the Dreamers
Freddie and the Dreamers were an English band who had a number of hit records between May 1963 and November 1965. Their stage act was based around the comic antics of the 5-foot-3-inch-tall Freddie Garrity, who would bounce around the stage with arms and legs flying. The group remained active...
) allegedly led by Marchant, and then, according to the Hidden Hand, driven to a farm in Glenanne, County Armagh
County Armagh
-History:Ancient Armagh was the territory of the Ulaid before the fourth century AD. It was ruled by the Red Branch, whose capital was Emain Macha near Armagh. The site, and subsequently the city, were named after the goddess Macha...
. This farm, which had been used to make and store the bombs, was owned by RUC
Royal Ulster Constabulary
The Royal Ulster Constabulary was the name of the police force in Northern Ireland from 1922 to 2000. Following the awarding of the George Cross in 2000, it was subsequently known as the Royal Ulster Constabulary GC. It was founded on 1 June 1922 out of the Royal Irish Constabulary...
reservist James Mitchell of the Glenanne gang
Glenanne gang
The Glenanne gang was a name given, since 2003, to a loose alliance of Northern Irish loyalist extremists who carried out sectarian killings and bomb attacks in the 1970s against the Irish Catholic and Irish nationalist community. Most of its attacks took place in the area of County Armagh and mid...
. After the cars were delivered to the waiting bomb unit, the latter drove them across the border down to the Coachman's Inn pub carpark. Journalist Joe Tiernan suggested that the cars were driven directly to the North Dublin carpark, with only one stop in Portadown by one of the cars to collect David Alexander Mulholland
David Alexander Mulholland
David Alexander Mulholland was a Northern Irish loyalist paramilitary, known to the security forces for his alleged involvement in bombing attacks. He was a member of the Ulster Volunteer Force's Mid-Ulster Brigade and was a prime suspect in the 1974 Dublin car bombings...
, one of the alleged bombers. It was at the carpark that the three bombs, which had been transported in a chicken lorry by senior Mid-Ulster UVF member Robin "the Jackal" Jackson
Robin Jackson
Robert John "Robin" Jackson, known as the Jackal was a Northern Irish loyalist who held the rank of brigadier in the Ulster Volunteer Force during the period of violent religious and political conflict in Northern Ireland known as the Troubles.From his home in the small village of Donaghcloney,...
, were placed inside the boots of the cars by Hanna and Jackson. The cars - a metallic green 1970 model Hillman Avenger
Hillman Avenger
The Hillman Avenger was a rear-wheel drive small family car originally manufactured under the Hillman marque by the Rootes Group from 1970–1976, and made by Chrysler Europe from 1976–1981 as the Chrysler Avenger and finally the Talbot Avenger...
and blue Austin 1800 Maxi - that ended up in Parnell Street
Parnell Street
Parnell Street is located on Dublin's Northside and runs from Capel Street in the west to Gardiner Street and Mountjoy Square in the east, and is at the north end of O'Connell Street, where it provides the south side of Parnell Square....
and South Leinster Street had been hijacked while the metallic blue mink Ford Escort which detonated in Talbot Street
Talbot Street
Talbot Street is a city-centre street located on Dublin's Northside and is one of the principal shopping streets of Dublin, running from Connolly station and the IFSC at Amiens Street in the east to Marlborough Street in the west. The street is named after Charles Chetwynd, 3rd Earl of Talbot,...
had been stolen from Belfast's docks area. All three cars had retained their original registration numbers. In 1993 Yorkshire Television aired a documentary The Hidden Hand: The Forgotten Massacre and it named Marchant as having been on a Garda list of suspects as the leader of the gang which obtained the bomb cars.
Ninety minutes after the Dublin blasts, another car bomb exploded in Monaghan
Monaghan
Monaghan is the county town of County Monaghan in Ireland. Its population at the 2006 census stood at 7,811 . The town is located on the main road, the N2 road, from Dublin north to both Derry and Letterkenny.-Toponym:...
, causing a further seven deaths. A detective from Dublin's Store Street Garda Station received confidential information that Marchant had masterminded both the Dublin and Monaghan attacks. On 26 May he was arrested by the Northern Ireland security forces under the Northern Ireland (Emergency Provision) Act 1974 and interned at the Maze Prison on an Interim Custody Order partly on suspicion of having participated in the car bombings. He was interrogated by detectives but refused to reply to any questions relating to the Dublin bombings. Marchant and the others who had also been interned as suspects in the attacks, were never brought to trial due to lack of evidence. The RUC Special Branch
Special Branch
Special Branch is a label customarily used to identify units responsible for matters of national security in British and Commonwealth police forces, as well as in the Royal Thai Police...
, in a reply dated 23 July 1974 to an earlier Gardai enquiry regarding Marchant, stated that Marchant "was our guest for a number of hours (and CID
Criminal Investigation Department
The Crime Investigation Department is the branch of all Territorial police forces within the British Police and many other Commonwealth police forces, to which plain clothes detectives belong. It is thus distinct from the Uniformed Branch and the Special Branch.The Metropolitan Police Service CID,...
) but with negative result". The Barron Report which was the findings of the official investigation into the car bombings commissioned by Irish Supreme Court Justice Henry Barron
Henry Barron
Henry Barron was an Irish judge. He sat on the Irish Supreme Court from 1997 until his retirement in 2000. He was the first Jew to hold this position....
confirmed that Marchant was named in the Garda files as the leader of the gang which provided the bomb cars. Colin Wallace briefed the media without attribution identifying Marchant as the person responsible for the car hijackings and theft, based on his own information. In a written statement to Justice For the Forgotten (an organisation of victims and relatives seeking justice for the Dublin and Monaghan bombings), Wallace maintained that Marchant was "identified to [British] Army Intelligence as a Special Branch source being run by a named officer". When queried by the organisation's legal team, Wallace qualified the statement by adding:
"That's right, that was my belief...there were a number of Special Branch people who at this time appeared to have very close links with various loyalist groups. I'm not saying for good or ill, but certainly had close links with key loyalists. Marchant may well have been an informant, but I don't know".
Many years later, journalist Peter Taylor
Peter Taylor (Journalist)
Peter Taylor born in Scarborough, North Riding of Yorkshire is a British journalist and documentary-maker who had covered for many years the political and armed conflict in Northern Ireland, widely known as the Troubles...
questioned PUP politician and former senior Belfast UVF member David Ervine
David Ervine
David Ervine was a Northern Irish politician and the leader of the Progressive Unionist Party .-Biography:...
about UVF motives for bombing Dublin in 1974. He replied they [UVF] were "returning the serve". Although Ervine had had nothing to do with the bombings, he said they were carried out to make Catholics in the Irish Republic suffer as Protestants in Northern Ireland had been suffering as the result of the IRA bombing campaign.
As of 2011, nobody has ever been convicted of the Dublin and Monaghan bombings.
Killing
Marchant was shot dead by a gunman from a passing car as he stood outside "The Eagle" chip shop on the crowded Shankill Road on 28 April 1987. The UVF Brigade Staff had their headquarters in the rooms above the shop. The shooting took place close to the offices of the Progressive Unionist PartyProgressive Unionist Party
The Progressive Unionist Party is a small unionist political party in Northern Ireland. It was formed from the Independent Unionist Group operating in the Shankill area of Belfast, becoming the PUP in 1979...
(PUP). The hitman was an IRA volunteer. His fatal shooting was in retaliation for the UVF's killing of Larry Marley, a close friend of Sinn Féin
Sinn Féin
Sinn Féin is a left wing, Irish republican political party in Ireland. The name is Irish for "ourselves" or "we ourselves", although it is frequently mistranslated as "ourselves alone". Originating in the Sinn Féin organisation founded in 1905 by Arthur Griffith, it took its current form in 1970...
President Gerry Adams
Gerry Adams
Gerry Adams is an Irish republican politician and Teachta Dála for the constituency of Louth. From 1983 to 1992 and from 1997 to 2011, he was an abstentionist Westminster Member of Parliament for Belfast West. He is the president of Sinn Féin, the second largest political party in Northern...
and a senior IRA member from Ardoyne
Ardoyne
Ardoyne is an Irish nationalist, working class and mainly Catholic district in north Belfast, Northern Ireland. It gained notoriety due to the large number of incidents during "The Troubles". It is home to approximately 20,000 inhabitants...
, less than a month before. On 1 May 1987, Marchant was given a full UVF paramilitary funeral. The address given at his funeral service, which denounced all paramilitary organisations and their acts of violence, was afterwards praised by Roman Catholic bishop Cathal Daly. Marchant's widow later gave her permission for their son to go to the USA in a Catholic/Protestant student exchange visit.
Several months after Marchant's shooting, the UVF sought to avenge his death with an attempt on the life of Anthony "Booster" Hughes, a suspected IRA man from Ardoyne.
According to author and journalist Martin Dillon
Martin Dillon
Martin Dillon is an author and journalist from Northern Ireland. He worked for eighteen years at the BBC and has written a number of plays and novels, but he is best known for his non-fiction books about the Troubles....
, Marchant's daily movements leading up to his death had been unpredictable and erratic; this indicated the possibility that just before his shooting someone had alerted the IRA by telephone, advising them of Marchant's presence on the Shankill Road. The IRA would normally have kept a hit squad on standby in a neighbourhood close to where their intended target was likely to be. Marchant's killing was the third assassination carried out in the 1980s by the IRA against senior UVF members. The UVF conducted an internal inquiry in an attempt to establish whether someone within the organisation had supplied information to the IRA which had led to the killings of Marchant and the other two: Shankill Butcher
Shankill Butchers
The Shankill Butchers is the name given to an Ulster loyalist gang, many of whom were members of the Ulster Volunteer Force . The gang conducted paramilitary activities during the 1970s in Belfast, Northern Ireland. It was most notorious for its late-night kidnapping, torture and murder of random...
Lenny Murphy
Lenny Murphy
Hugh Leonard Thompson Murphy, who commonly went by the name Lenny , was an Ulster loyalist from Belfast, Northern Ireland. Murphy was a member of the Ulster Volunteer Force and leader of the infamous Shankill Butchers a gang which became notorious for its torture and murder of Catholic men...
and John Bingham
John Bingham (loyalist)
John Dowey Bingham was a prominent Northern Irish loyalist who led "D Company" , 1st Battalion, Ulster Volunteer Force . He was shot dead by the Provisional IRA after they had broken into his home...
. Although the inquiry revealed that Marchant - as well as Murphy and Bingham - had quarrelled with powerful West Belfast UDA
Ulster Defence Association
The Ulster Defence Association is the largest although not the deadliest loyalist paramilitary and vigilante group in Northern Ireland. It was formed in September 1971 and undertook a campaign of almost twenty-four years during "The Troubles"...
fund-raiser James Pratt Craig
James Craig (loyalist)
James Pratt "Jim" Craig was a Northern Irish loyalist, who served as a fund-raiser for the Ulster Defence Association and sat on its Inner Council. He also ran a large protection racket from west Belfast's Shankill Road area, where he lived...
before their deaths, the UVF Brigade Staff did not consider the evidence sufficient to warrant an attack against Craig, who ran a large protection racket. According to Dillon, Marchant had been due to meet Craig outside "The Eagle" before he was shot dead. Instead of getting out of the car at the chip shop where Marchant waited, Craig got out at the Inter-City furniture shop on the corner of Conway Street. There he engaged in conversation with another person for five minutes. Within the five minutes, Marchant was gunned down just 50 yards away. In October 1988, Craig was shot to death in an East Belfast pub by the UDA (using their cover name Ulster Freedom Fighters) for "treason", claiming that he had been involved in the death of UDA leader John McMichael
John McMichael
John "Big John" McMichael was a leading Northern Irish loyalist who rose to become the most prominent figure within the Ulster Defence Association as the Deputy Commander and leader of its South Belfast Brigade. He was also commander of the organisation's cover name, the "Ulster Freedom Fighters"...
, who was blown up the previous December in a booby-trap car bomb planted by the IRA.
Two years prior to his killing, Marchant had been one of the 47 people named by UVF supergrass William "Budgie Allen. Although he appeared before Belfast's Crumlin Road Crown Court, the case against him and the others collapsed when the judge decided Allen's evidence was ""totally unreliable".
At the junction of Spier's Place and the Shankill Road, there is a mural and memorial plaque commemorating William "Frenchie" Marchant.