In 1976 , McFarlane was sentenced to life imprisonment in connection with the Bayardo Bar attack on Aberdeen Street in the Protestant Shankill Road district of Belfast , which killed five people ( three men and two women ) and injured 60 more on 13 August 1975 . In a 1995 House of Lords debate , Gerry Fitt , the formerly Nationalist Party MP for West Belfast , alleged that McFarlane had machine-gunned three pedestrians who were passing by the Bayardo as it was blown up . The bar was attacked because it was frequented by member of the loyalist Ulster Volunteer Force ( UVF ) . The IRA initially denied it had carried out the attack . The attack occurred against a background of severe sectarian violence . The IRA killed 88 Protestant civilians in similar attacks in 1974 – 76 , in reprisal for loyalist attacks on Catholics , which killed 250 civilians in the same period
Bayardo Bar attack
Bayardo Bar attack
Brendan McFarlane