The Truth About Brendan "Bik" McFarlane

Brendan Bik McFarlane was a vicious sectarian murderer.

On a damp, unremarkable Wednesday evening, August 13, 1975, the Bayardo Bar was doing what Belfast pubs did best: serving as a refuge from the chaos of the sectarian civil strife we like to euphemistically call in Ireland “The Troubles” like it was an irritable bowel movement rather than a vicious sectarian civil war. The pub was packed with the usual assortment of humanity—old men nursing pints, young couples stealing glances, and everyone in between, all united by the simple desire to forget, for a moment, the grinding misery of the Troubles. But history, that cruel and capricious playwright, had other plans. Just before the last call, a stolen green Audi rolled up outside, carrying three men from the IRA’s Belfast Brigade. Among them was Brendan “Bik” McFarlane, a 24-year-old Ardoyne man who was about to orchestrate a night that would sear itself into the collective memory of a city already scarred by many such nights.

Seamus Clarke and Peter “Skeet” Hamilton, the other two members …