Brendan McKenna (or Brendain MacCionnaith in Irish-Gaelic) is a former IRA terrorist who has recently served a jail term for his role in a bomb attack on an ex-serviceman's community centre in Portadown. The community centre in question catered for old soldiers, both Protestant and Catholic, who had fought with America against the Nazis in World War II, and more recently with United Nations peacekeeping forces around the world. It was a symbol of peace and normality in a quiet town with good community relations, and unacceptable to the IRA for precisely that reason.

Following the bombing Brendan McKenna was arrested, found guilty of possessing a firearm, false imprisonment and hi-jacking and later jailed for six years. The judge, a Catholic by the name of William Doyle, was later murdered by the IRA after attending Mass in a Catholic church in Belfast.

The IRA make a special point of murdering Catholics who join the police and judiciary. The aim of this is to intimidate Catholics from speaking out against them. For this reason many Catholics who hold moderately unionist views refrain from speaking out in public, or, when questioned publicly, claim to be nationalist."

Sentencing, Judge William Doyle, said that McKenna had been convicted by the "most cogent evidence" and described McKenna's offences as "horrifying".