Robert McBride

Robert McBride (born 6 July 1963) is the former chief of the metropolitan police for Ekurhuleni Metropolitan Municipality. During the apartheid era he was a member of Umkhonto we Sizwe, the armed wing of the African National Congress.

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During McBride's trial in 1987 for the Durban bombing, his advocate (David Gordon) invented the story that McBride was a great-grandson of Irish Republican revolutionary, Major John MacBride.[21] Major John MacBride had been a commander of the Irish Transvaal Brigade and had fought alongside the Boers during the Second Boer War and was subsequently executed by the British for his role in the 1916 Easter Rising in Ireland. Gordon later said, 'I discovered that there had been a "John MacBride" who came to South Africa and he fought on the side of the Boers during the Anglo-Boer war.... I knew that he was no relative - I know there was no blood relationship, but I thought that it was just ironic that John MacBride had come to South Africa at the time of the Boer war to fight on the side of the Boers.'[22]

McBride became something of a cause célèbre in Ireland and he received the support of many Irish people to have his death sentence commuted and afterwards to be released. Major John MacBride's grandson in Ireland was one of them. Tiernan MacBride (1932-1995) wrote to President Botha: "My grandfather was Major John MacBride, who helped to organise and fought as second-in-command of the Irish Brigade against the British in the South African war of independence. It is likely that this activity was a factor in the British decision to execute him after the Easter Rising in Dublin in 1916. Robert McBride, who it appears is a great grandson of Major John MacBride, is now under sentence of death in South Africa.... It would be tragic if you did not take the opportunity to save this descendant of one of the heroes of your country's foundation."[22]

In 1991, McBride's wife Paula said "the Irish people were very supportive. Robert received countless cards from people all over Ireland. It meant a great deal to him" and she hoped that F.W. de Klerk's visit to Ireland in April 1991 would hasten his release.[23] McBride has visited Ireland several times since his release.[24]

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