of Ireland in the town of Drogheda in a house attached to Thornton's grocer's shop and video store. Locals tended to boycott it when they heard McGlinchey had arrived. They believed his occasional appearances at the counter were a cover for a new armed gang he was forming in the Republic". His old organisation, meanwhile, had continued its campaign, on his release, attempting—but failing—to kill a UVF man in north Belfast in January 1993, for example. If McGlinchey had decided to turn his back on armed struggle, suggests Dillon, within a short space of time he discovered that his enemies had not. In June 1993, he was driving to his son Dominic's birthday party in Newtowndarver, Dundalk. A car pulled up next to him, and McGlinchey, probably thinking it was the Gardaí, approached it. A man with a machine gun got out, but as he was cocking the weapon, McGlinchey grabbed hold of it: a short of fire skimmed McGlinchey's head, but the weapon jammed. The attacker then drew a pistol, with a number of shots hitting McGlinchey; he, however, was able to take cover in a shrubbery. Coogan comments that one of McGlinchey's children ran after the car to take its number. Although McGlinchey survived the attack, a bullet was lodged in his skull. This and others were removed under surgery. McGlinchey was kept under armed guard while recovering in hospital. The identity of the gunmen is unknown. McGlinchey, at different times, blamed both British Intelligence—he said his attackers had English accents—and the Loyalist leader Billy Wright, whom McGlinchey had previously attempted to assassinate. The IPLO also claimed responsibility, although McGlinchey rejected the suggestion. Reiterating his view that British intelligence was responsible, he claimed that "the only people who would gain from me going home to Bellaghy in a box were the British". McKittrick suggests that there was much contemporaneous speculation as to the involvement of South Armagh republicans. Others have also suggested that it was a UVF operation, or perhaps carried out by friends of Sparky Barkley. Holland and McDonald comment, however, that: The choice of venue to gun down one of Ireland's most notorious paramilitary figures...pointed to the real identity of the gang. It was not an accident that they had chosen the spot near Ardee, County Louth, because it was there that he assumed the leadership of the INLA almost exactly ten years before. Notwithstanding his