McCaughey also pleaded guilty to the kidnapping of a Catholic priest, Father Hugh Murphy, in retaliation for the kidnapping and killing of two members of the security forces by the Provisional Irish Republican Army. Murphy was released unharmed after a plea from Ian Paisley. He also admitted to a gun and bomb attack on a pub, the Rock Bar, in Keady in 1977. McCaughey shot and seriously injured a man who prevented him entering the pub, which he intended to spray with machine gun fire. The bomb failed to explode. Two other RUC officers were handed suspended sentences for their part in the bombing. The guns used in the attack were the same ones used in the murder of three Catholic brothers Anthony, John and Brian Reavey in Armagh on 4 January 1976. McCaughey was also implicated in the killings of three members of the O'Dowd family - Barry, his brother Declan and their uncle Joe - targeted 10 minutes after the Reaveys (see Reavey and O'Dowd killings). McCaughey told the surviving Reavey brother in 1988 that he was at the house with three other attackers but fired no shots".