Diarmuid O'Neill

Diarmuid O'Neill, also Dermot O'Neill (24th June 1969 - 23rd September 1996) was an Irish Republican and a member of the Terrorist organisation the Irish Republican Army.

Biography
O'Neill was born in London in 1969. Growing up, he took an interest in Irish Nationalism, and became involved with the IRA. Soon after leaving school, O'Neill took part in a bank fraud scheme during which he defrauded £75, 000 from an Irish bank and donated it to the IRA, for which he spent nine months in prison.

In 1996, O'Neill and other IRA supporters were placed under surveillance by the Metropolitan Police. The surveillance program involved bugging his hotel room, leading to the police discovering that O'Neill was planning to detonate a lorry bomb in the centre of London, and that he and the other IRA members were prepared to shoot to kill if the police raided them.

On 23rd September 1996, the Metropolitan Police conducted a raid on O'Neill's hotel room with the intention of arresting O'Neill and his two accomplices before they could carry out the attack. During the raid, O'Neill was shot six times by a police officer, later dying in hospital. After his death, controversy arose due to allegations by his accomplices that O'Neill was shot while attempting to surrender and denied immediate medical care. The coroner also suggested that someone had stepped on O'Neill's head while he was still alive, causing further controversy. However, in 2000 an inquest ruled that O'Neill had been killed lawfully. He is buried in St. Mologas Cemetery, County Cork.