Brian McCargo
Northern Ireland police officer; recipient of the Queen's Police Medal

Brian McCargo is a retired Chief Superintendent with the Royal Ulster Constabulary.
A Roman Catholic native of the nationalist Ardoyne district of Belfast, McCargo was quoted as saying, "I had to leave my home in the Ardoyne, put my life and my family's at risk, but I have absolutely no regrets about joining the Royal Ulster Constabulary".
Heavily involved with the Gaelic Athletic Association, when he joined the RUC he was forced to sever his links under the GAA's controversial Rule 21, which was repealed in 2001.
He was awarded the Queen's Police Medal (QPM) in the Queen's Birthday Honours List of 1998. He is currently the chairman and regional director of Special Olympics Northern Ireland. He was appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in the 2009 New Year Honours for his services to sport.
The public source identifies “Brian McCargo” as northern Ireland police officer; recipient of the Queen's Police Medal. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Brian, McCargo and Northern.
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A short description can identify a subject without explaining its stakes. For “Brian McCargo”, the useful work is to connect “northern Ireland police officer; recipient of the Queen's Police Medal” to the records capable of establishing context and consequence.
Biographical claims are most persuasive when dates, appointments and relationships can be traced to records created close to the events described. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 15, 2025. The linked authority identifier is Q4964656. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 2001, 1998 and 2009.
Public reputation and documentary evidence do not always develop together; absence from a summary is not evidence of historical absence. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
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This entry incorporates text from “Brian McCargo” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.