After his release, McGlinchey joined Ian Milne and future Provisional IRA hunger strikers Francis Hughes and Thomas McElwee and waged a campaign of shooting and bombing throughout the county and beyond.

[11] Costello had fought in the Border campaign in south County Londonderry "and his reputation still carried weight in the area; his new organisation had no difficulty in winning recruits from the Officials", suggest Holland and McDonald.

[12] Founder members included Jimmy Brown, Tom McCartan, Gino Gallagher, Dessie O'Hare and Gerard "Dr Death" Steenson, most of whom McGlinchey would fight with over the next decade.

[38] Such was their impact, says David Beresford in his book Ten Men Dead—giving the example of their murders of Constables John McCracken and Keneth Sheehan in Magherafelt on 8 April 1977[note 8]—that the Royal Ulster Constabulary issued wanted posters of McGlinchey and the others.

[35] On one occasion in 1977, McGlinchey evaded the RUC in Randalstown, Antrim—three members of which he had just shot at—with the help of a friendly fisherman who hijacked a motorboat and ferried him across Lough Neagh to Tyrone and his escape.

Through his solicitors, McGlinchey presented evidence of his IRA active service at the time in the form of wanted posters, charge sheets and articles naming him in the Ballymena Guardian.

This was not accepted, and McGinchley re-approached his challenge, this time basing it on the clause of the Act which prevented extradition if there were grounds for believing that, following transfer the individual would then in any case still be prosecuted for political offences.

McGlinchey told her that if she had not heard from Dale by morning, she was to make her way to Culloville for information; McMahon, realising that the gang were going to steal her car as well, asked how she was expected to travel from Monaghan to South Armagh without a vehicle.

[137][note 38] As the Dale case illustrates, McGlinchey occasionally tortured his victims, often "with the aid of instruments such as a red-hot poker", says Coogan,[139] often using Tom McCartan, a "quick-tempered and violent man", for such work.

[146] A fake tour operator called Caruso, under cover of an address in London's Albemarle Street, wrote to Tony and Margaret Hayde in September informing them that they had won third-prize in a competition, an all-expenses-paid week in Torremilenos.

The Haydes were founder members of the IRSP, and The Times reported that "the couple, who admit to having met Dominic McGlinchey, allegedly INLA chief of staff and Ireland's most wanted man, say they were offered immediate cash and the promise of a further £10,000 in return for information".

[149] In an attempt to restore the peace, in a December 1983 interview with the Starry Plough, McGlinchey supported Sinn Féin's decision to increase its political involvement in the Republic and called for greater cooperation in the north between the two groups.

[117] In O'Donnell's words, thanks to the Attorney General Peter Sutherland "and an unprecedented" court sitting, within 18 hours of his arrest in Clare[197] he was transferred to the RUC at the Killeen border checkpoint.

[168] Sinn Féin said the extradition had caused "a sense of treachery and anger" in the Nationalist community; The Economist wrote that, while "the IRA had no love for Mr McGlinchey...it must fear the creation of precedents that could affect its own gunmen".

[note 59] Following what Arizona jurist Michael P. P. Simon calls a "controversial and politically sensitive decision",[205] Coogan says that it then "soon became clear that the Northern authorities had little or no evidence" on which to hold McGlinchey.

[208] The then-leader of Sinn Féin, Gerry Adams, later joked in Fortnight magazine that the Catholic Church was insistent that "although reports that Mr McGlinchey was seen to move have been verified by many observers, his movements back and forth across the border do not meet the conditions used to describe a miracle".

[233] Although the Justice Department offered him the opportunity to hear a private service for his wife within the prison—with his children and close friend Bernadette Devlin McAliskey attending—McGlinchey refused, demanding he be allowed to the funeral itself.

[224][note 69] The journalist Maggie O'Kane later described McGlinchey's last days: "Since his release from prison last year he had lived on the east coast of Ireland in the town of Drogheda in a house attached to Thornton's grocer's shop and video store.

[239] At around 11 pm McGlinchey and the 16-year-old Dominic were returning home,[242][134] when—"for reasons never made clear", says Dillon[253]—McGlinchey pulled up to make a phone call from a public kiosk on Hardman's Gardens,[260] near Lourdes Hospital.

[134] Following McGlinchey's death, a number of stories appeared in the Irish press accusing him of drug dealing[note 73] and other crimes, such as fencing stolen lorries from the border region.

This was despite, note Holland and McDonald, of concerns raised by seasoned INLA men such as Harry Flynn and Gerry Roche that socialist politics and activity was fundamental to the existence of both groups.

[291][note 82] Similarly, the scholar Paul K. Clare said that, while researching public opinion in Northern Ireland, he asked a group of young men in Turf Lodge "if there was any one individual who they admired more than anyone else.

[296][note 85] His reputation, suggests the writer Jonathan Stevenson, became that of "fabled killer",[254] while Coogan describes him as "a latter-day Ned Kelly",[278] as committed to republicanism as Frances Hughes[29] yet with far greater notoriety.

[100]Christopher S. Morrison of the University of Wisconsin-Madison describes McGlinchey as earning "a personal reputation for sheer readiness to murder that no single republican figure of the Troubles has come close to challenging".

[303] McGlinchey's "Mad Dog" nickname was given him by the security services[24][note 88]—the modern historian Ruán O'Donnell calls the term a "pejorative soubriquet"[305]—who considered him a "psycho".

[66] Dillon suggests that, in reality, the army did not consider him a mad dog but a "committed terrorist who had proved...dangerous and unpredictable",[129] while the investigative journalist Mark Urban says McGlinchey had "driven the INLA into active and reasonably effective terrorism".

[286] Republicans tended to ignore the "Mad Dog" and "psycho" tags, which they deemed to part of what they believed to be a normal British propaganda campaign,[269][note 89] albeit, says the author Gene Kerrigan, "in a cartoon fashion, as a bogeyman".

[313] The narrative explores the evolving relationship between the two, which moves from fear and distrust on her part to "a sort of mutual liking, even tenderness", writes the critic John Dunne, although noting that McGreevy "is no Mad Dog".

[295] O'Brien, comments the researcher John Maher, "builds up, through the old woman's interactions with McGreevy, an increasingly sympathetic picture of the terrorist [which] reflects O 'Brien's own strong republican sympathies".

[323] The author Henry McDonald, writing in The Guardian, agrees that Padraic "bears some comparison with the real life" of McGlinchey, as both are portrayed as being "too extreme even for the Provisional IRA".