Alan McQuillan (left), then assistant chief constable of the RUC, showing then-Northern secretary John Reid (second from right) the scale of the security operation for a protest at Holy Cross school, north Belfast, in the early 2000s.
Born: February 6th 1955
Died: October 6th 2025
Alan McQuillan, a former PSNI assistant chief constable who has died aged 70, was asked after he was diagnosed with terminal prostate cancer close to four years ago whether he was afraid of dying. “Not at all,” he replied. As first an RUC and then a PSNI officer, he had escaped death “probably more than a dozen times”, so therefore he could equably face that final challenge.
He told the BBC’s Stephen Nolan that the first time anybody tried to kill him was when he was 15, returning home from school in north Belfast. It was, he said, a “simple sectarian” IRA attack on schoolchildren. He remembered vividly the “flashes” from the barrel of the weapon, the “rattle of machine gunfire and the bullets whistling over his head”, and a group of previously-skipping girls scattering away in terror to safety.
A member of the Royal Ulster Constabulary and the PS
Continue Reading on The Irish Times
This preview shows approximately 15% of the article. Read the full story on the publisher's website to support quality journalism.