A tribute to Blair Wallace, a hero of the Troubles

The names of leading republicans like Gerry Adams, Martin McGuinness and Bobby Sands are well known, but how many in Great Britain can identify a Chief Constable of the Royal Ulster Constabulary – or, indeed, a single security force hero of the Troubles?

Blair Wallace, who has died aged 87 and will be buried tomorrow, was just such a hero. He was the last of the “big beasts” of the RUC Chief Officers from the height of the conflict, rising to the post of Deputy Chief Constable – until he lost out on the top job in 1996.

Wallace led from the front and was injured five times during the Troubles

He was a walking history book, serving 42 years, a stint unimaginable in any force nowadays. His career stretched from the abortive IRA Border Campaign of 1956-62, through to the aftermath of the Belfast Agreement of 1998.

Wallace was present when the first RUC officer murdered in the Troubles, Constable Victor Arbuckle, was slain by west Belfast loyalists in 1969; he carried the dying Gunner Robert Curtis to an ambulance, the first regular soldier to be killed by republicans, in 1971; and, by a miracle, was not on the Chinook helicopter which crashed at the Mull of Kintyre in 1994, wiping out the cream of RUC Special Branch and much of the rest of the senior intelligence community in the Province; he knew 25 out of the 29 fatalities on that flight.