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Brian McCargo

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

Correspondence, annotated notebooks and portrait silhouettes prepared for research
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Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionSep 15, 2025
Entity authorityQ4964656
Source-derived summary

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Association, when he joined the RUC he was forced to sever his links under the GAA's controversial Rule 21, which was repealed in 2001.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.

Editorial summary

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.

Editorial reviewStrongest as a route into the people, institutions and dated events that shaped the subject’s public record. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—2001, 1998, 2009—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 2000-01-01. Its value is orientation rather than verdict, with Brian, McCargo and Northern providing the first useful test.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

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.

Evidence profile

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.

Critical limits

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.

How to read it

Read biographical claims against dates, named institutions and the cited references. Distinguish a subject’s later reputation from evidence produced during their lifetime.

Best used for
  • Establishing names and roles
  • Building a first chronology
  • Locating cited institutions
Verify next

Personal papers, civil or court records, institutional files and the scholarship cited by the source.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Brian McCargo”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Brian McCargo primary sources, Brian McCargo archive and Brian research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Brian McCargo”?
  2. How has the subject’s reputation changed across later accounts?
  3. Which claims depend on a single source or contested interpretation?
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Source & attribution

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.