by Ken Wharton
Saor Éire – meaning ‘Free Ireland’ – was a left-wing political organisation established in September 1931 by communist-leaning members of the IRA, with the backing of the IRA army council. Notable among its founders was Peadar O’Donnell, former editor of An Phoblacht (a Republican newssheet) and a leading left-wing figure in the IRA. Saor Éire described itself as an organization of workers and working farmers, and was reformed in 1967 but had drifted into obscurity by 1975. Between 1967 and 1970, Saor Éire carried out a number of bank robberies, the proceeds being used to purchase arms. The group provided arms, training and funding to Nationalists in Northern Ireland after the outbreak of the Troubles in 1969. A raid on two banks in Newry, Co Down in March 1969, involving Saor Eire netted over £20,000, the biggest single haul from a robbery in the country at the time. In February 1970 the group took over the village of Rathdrum in Co Wicklow, in the Republic, stopping traffic and cutting phone lines, whilst they robbed the local bank.
Cumann na mBan (female IRA) in action. (Mark ‘C’)
To add to the growing list of Republican groups and splinter-groups, a further faction – Saoirse Eire – split from Saor Eire and one of the defectors was Larry White (25) who lived in the Irish Republic. On the 10th, White, a leading former Saor Éire activist from Cork was shot several times on Mount Eden Road, Cork. He died of his injuries a short time later. The Official IRA are widely believed to have been responsible for the killing claiming, somewhat spuriously, that White had been involved with the INLA in shooting and wounding Sean Garland in Ballymun in March. This killing is considered to be among the internecine feuding deaths carried out between INLA and OIRA. Saoirse Eire and Saor Eire both ceased as functioning Republican activist groups a short time afterwards.
Forty eight hours later, in what was a catastrophic ‘own goal’ by the UVF, two of their members blew themselves to pieces when a device which they were transporting, prematurely detonated. Thomas Chapman (28) and James McGregor (also 28) had planned a late night bombing attack on an unnamed bar in the Catholic docks area. As they reached Great Patrick Street, they stopped their stolen car and it is likely that they were priming the device which was intended to kill and maim innocent Catholics. As fate would have it, they succeeded only in killing themselves in what was a massive explosion which hurled their shattered bodies and car some 200 feet away.
Less than nine hours later, in an event that was to unite Catholic and Protestant families in grief, the UFF were involved in the appalling murder of a toddler. The Loyalist terror group targeted a local Catholic and left a booby-trapped explosive device in his car, in the full knowledge that he transported his own child and two other small children to nursery school on a morning. After putting little Michelle O’Connor (3) into his car, Mr O’Connor went to speak to the parent of one of the other children; as he did so, the car exploded, killing the infant absolutely instantly and severely injuring him. At the child’s funeral a few days later, families of both communities were united in grief at the funeral of little Michelle.
Jim Bryson mural on the Ballymurphy Estate. (Author’s photo)
If the shared grief of two communities gave hope of reconciliation, it was soon shattered the next day when four thugs from the ‘Woodvale Defence Association’, thought to be an off-shoot of the UVF, were involved in the appallingly senseless, sectarian murder of an innocent Catholic. Using a stolen car, they cruised along the New Lodge Road in Belfast and as a couple, within view of their teenage son, approached the Antrim Road, they sprayed them with machine gun bullets. Margaret O’Niell (58) was hit and fatally wounded, dying shortly afterwards in her husband’s arms as her shocked son looked on. The gang drove further along the New Lodge Road, firing indiscriminately at passing Catholics. A patrol of the Parachute Regiment chased and stopped the murderers who were arrested and later sentenced to long prison terms.
This was all the non-sectarian PIRA needed and they attacked, within hours, a Protestant-owned pub – The Garden Bar – albeit in a Catholic area. The security man, Joseph Branagh (39) who was a Protestant, was hit several times and made his way inside, dying shortly afterwards. The bloody tit-for-tat had claimed another life and further reprisals were being planned even as the security man’s lifeless body was removed to the mortuary.
At Westminster on the 18th, a Bill was introduced to make amendments to the Northern Ireland Emergency Provision Act (1973). The main amendment had the effect of giving control of detention to the Secretary of State. Stormont’s power was ebbing away, bit by bit. This latest action sent the dual message, that the mainland British Government was determined to act and act decisively and also that Stormont was ‘yesterday’s man.’
On the 19th, a Catholic teenager was killed by a booby-trapped device left by the UVF at a petrol station in Great George Street, in Belfast’s docks area. The attack was just around the corner from Great Patrick Street where UVF terrorists had blown themselves up, en-route to murder Catholics, just a week earlier. Francis Bradley (16) picked up the can which exploded and killed him instantly. Even with the passage of time, there is still no definitive answer as to why the teenager was killed; it would seem to the perverted eyes of the UVF that it was simply a case of planting a device at a petrol station in a Catholic area, fully certain that a Catholic customer would pick up the can. This was the first of three deaths – paramilitary related – for young Bradley’s extended family over the course of around 20 years.
On the 20th, as the British prepared for the northern hemisphere’s version of summer, a lone Catholic from Belfast’s Short Strand was shot and fatally wounded by Loyalists. Hugh Duffy (30) was in the southern part of the Catholic enclave close to Newtownards Road, walking home after his shift when he was shot down and left for dead. The killing was claimed by a group using the label PAF which was a cover name for the UFF, although several men convicted of the sectarian killing belonged to the UFF. Mr Duffy died less than 48 hours later on the 22nd and became the third innocent to die that day; there would be two others on that summer Sunday.
The day in question – the 22nd – proved to be a day of sectarian carnage as five people were killed or died from wounds; three were killed by the UVF and the other two by Republicans, likely to be either PIRA members acting independently, or possibly an individual with Republican ties. The killings began in the early morning when Hugh Brankin (32) a Catholic with learning difficulties was abducted after an evening’s drinking in a club in Monkstown, Co Antrim. Monkstown is situated within the vicinity of Newtownabbey, due north of Belfast and close to Belfast Lough. It was considered a UVF stronghold and therefore a dangerous place for a Catholic to be during the Troubles. Mr Brankin was taken from near where he had been drinking and shot in the head at very close range by a UVF murder gang. Later on that same day, there was a bungled attempt by the same Loyalist terror group to attack a train on the Republic’s rail network. As the gang planted a device under a bridge at Baronrath Bridge in Co Kildare, they were disturbed by Christopher Phelan (48) a father of five from Sallins, a small village nearby. The gang, whose attempt to kill a party of Republicans failed miserably, stabbed Mr Phelan to death and dumped his body nearby; he was an innocent Catholic.
Around the Glenalinas, Ballymurphy Estate. (Author’s photo)
As that fateful Sunday faded into history a double killing took place at Westland Road, North Belfast, close to the city’s waterworks. The killing of two innocent Protestants was a direct reprisal by Republicans for the shedding of Catholic blood earlier that day. Although PIRA never admitted responsibility, the murders bore their bloody fingerprints. Alan Raymond (23) and his friend Thomas Irvine (21) were walking down Westland Road, when a car pulled up alongside and several shots were fired at the two men; both died at the scene.
On the following Tuesday, in what was described as ‘…the work of a coward…’ an IRA gunman deliberately targeted a Protestant worker in the Ormeau Road area. Alan Ralph (25) had just finished his shift in a car repair shop and was about
to drive home, when he was shot several times in the back at close range. The father of two died at the scene and became the sixth sectarian murder victim in the space of 48 hours of mayhem.
On the same day, in what is still officially recorded by the MOD as ‘… cause of death unknown …’ Sergeant Major John Newton (41) of the Royal Engineers lost his life. The Warrant Officer was laid to rest at Culcross cemetery in Dunfermline in Scotland. The author would welcome any comments shedding light on this death for future editions.
The reader of this work, especially if not from a military background, might well question the motives and even the emotional mindset of the paramilitaries, Loyalist as well as Republican. One might well ask how on the one hand, the gunning down of an innocent apprentice butcher might convince the British that the country wished to remain an integral part of the UK. Conversely how the death of an innocent child might hasten the day that the British would leave Northern Ireland. This author has long maintained that both sets of paramilitaries harboured men with homicidal and pathological tendencies; men who might well have become serial killers, armed robbers and paedophiles had the Troubles not given them the opportunity to disguise their behaviour as patriotism. How else might one explain the pathological and sadistic tendencies as witnessed by INLA gunman Gerard ‘Dr. Death’ Steenson1 on the Republican side and Lenny ‘Shankill Butchers’ Murphy on the Loyalist side? Steenson was described by one soldier as: ‘…a cold blooded psychopath who enjoyed inflicting pain on others and fed off their fear.’ Both sides maintained that they were the true patriots and that they acted in self-defence in the protection of their respective communities. Wasn’t it Boswell who wrote that ‘Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel,’ or Wilde who uttered that ‘Patriotism is the virtue of the vicious.’
‘DOCTOR DEATH’
Ian Cooper, Royal Regiment of Fusiliers
I was part of COP (Close Observation Platoon) on a two-year tour of West Belfast during the hunger strike period. I met Sean Gerard Steenson on several occasions. I first became aware of him after a shooting in the Ballymurphy after which a player (whose name escapes me) was arrested. This player was a potential INLA leader and while in custody decided to go ‘Supergrass,’ and was moved to the mainland. Steenson then appeared on the scene from South Armagh although I believe that he was originally from Coalisland, Co Tyrone.
Both he and another INLA player called Kirkpatrick became very special targets of interest to us within COP, and from this point on were given the nick names ‘Pinkie & Perky.’ These two became very close and were rarely seen apart in public. ‘Doctor Death’ as he was dubbed by the RUC was a sharp dresser with vivid short cut and very neat ginger hair. He had piercing blue eyes that looked straight through you and were full of hate and death. Kirkpatrick, on the other hand, was a scruff with a beard. Steenson’s face will be etched in my brain forever. I have personally met and dealt with all the top players of that era due to our particular job during that tour, and have dealt with some very nasty criminals in my current job of work. But I can say without hesitation he will remain the most evil person I have ever met. There was an aura surrounding him that oozed pure evil, as if he was the son of Satan himself.
We had lifted him on one particular day, and he was sitting in the back of a Land Rover waiting to be transported to Springfield Road RUC station. He made a cross with his fingers and looked at one of my mates, as though he was looking through the crosshairs of a telescopic sight and smiled, making a comment I can’t remember. From that point on, we wanted him and let him know on every occasion we could. He was evil, as I have said, and he ruled by fear and intimidation. This may have worked whilst leading INLA but he knew that he didn’t intimidate us which I also know irked him immensely.
When talking to or searching others, we were in command and more relaxed with them, but when we stopped Steenson, we always had a weapon or two trained on his chest and head, letting him know that, given the opportunity, it would be all over for him in a heartbeat. Not sure if this is any help to you, Ken, but it felt good writing it as it took me back as if it was yesterday, I will never forget that evil bastard’s face.
On the 28th, with the British summer now a week old, the UVF did their bit to keep Northern Ireland in the UK by stabbing and fatally wounding recent school-leaver John Rolston (16) at Whitewell in North Belfast. The innocent Catholic boy was stabbed and shot and left for dead by a UVF gang intent on sectarian murder. He died the following day in hospital. The boy’s crime was to have befriended a Protestant who lived on the Loyalist Rathcoole Estate; being seen walking on the Estate was sufficient to sign his death warrant.
Troops patrol the Ballymurphy/Whiterock area. (Mark ‘C’)
Anthony Molloy (18) like many of his generation had married young and was living with his equally young bride and baby in Ballymena Street in the Catholic Oldpark area of North Belfast. On the evening of the last day of June, the apprentice welder was relaxing at home, when UVF gunmen burst into his house and shot him dead, accusing him – erroneously – of being a PIRA member.
The month had ended as it began, with the murder of an innocent; between the deaths of Margaret Kilfedder and Anthony Molloy, a total of 26 had lost their lives as the Troubles ground, mercilessly on. Of these, three were British soldiers, 18 were innocent civilians of whom, eight were Catholics, and 10 were Protestants. Three Republicans had been killed, and two Loyalist paramilitaries, had died in an ‘own goal’ explosion.
1 Later on in his ‘career’ Steenson left INLA and joined instead the Irish People’s Liberation Organisation (IPLO) on its formation in 1986. The group although small, was a vicious Republican terror group and in the main, contained disaffected INLA members who felt that their former comrades were militarily inept. Steenson was killed by his one-time associates on 14 March, 1987 when he and an IPLO member – Tony McCarthy – were ambushed by INLA gunmen in Springhill Avenue on the Ballymurphy Estate. Although these internecine killings are beyond the remit of this book, the following comments make interesting reading.
7
July
The July sunshine beamed bright over the Province of Northern Ireland, but was somehow unable to pierce the dark recesses of places such as Belfast and Londonderry, where the respective ‘Army Councils’ still plotted murder and mayhem on the ‘other side.’ One week after the month began a policeman would be killed in an IRA bomb blast; presumably this was plotted by the Republicans even as the first rays of sunshine permeated the darkness of 30 June and the new month was born.
PIRA Intelligence was generally very good and their campaigns of abductions, bombings and shootings were carefully worked out in advance, seemingly leaving nothing to chance as they relentlessly pursued their ‘enemies.’ However, the myriad number of pious, meaningless apologies which they made, over the last few years to their ‘community’ shows that they didn’t always get their targets right. Members of one of their Co Armagh ASUs sneaked into a school at Carrick in Lurgan sometime over the weekend of 5/6 July and planted a device in the Headmaster’s study. The Head was also a leading Loyalist politician named Alistair Black whom the IRA had previously tried to kill. As he entered his study on the morning of Monday, 7 July, he noticed that his desk had been interfered with and called the RUC. Tragically, as the policeman was examining the Head’s desk, the device exploded and Detective Constable Andrew Johnston (26) was killed instantly in the blast. A school employee standing close by was dreadfully injured and lost limbs.
On the next day, there was an incredibly lucky escape for an undercover soldier on a covert mission in the Lower Falls. Staff Captain C. XXX (Regiment not revealed) wearing plain clothes and driving a ‘Q’ car was ‘clocked’ by either PIRA men or dickers. He made one too many passes of Clonard Street and noticed that a car full of men was now following him closely; assuming correctly that they were IRA, he took avoiding action. He considered it likely that he would be rammed and tried to turn into Sevastopol Street from Odessa Street
but succeeded only in crashing and attracting a crowd within seconds. Rather than attempt to shoot it out, he ran to the RUC station on the Springfield Road, some five terrifying streets away. He left much military equipment and evidence of his mission, but escaped with his life.
On the 11th, which fell on a Friday, over in England, the trial of the six Irishmen accused of the Birmingham pub bombings the previous year (see Sir, They’re Taking The Kids Indoors by the same author) was in full flow. The six men who were later acquitted in one of the greatest miscarriages of justice in the British system were: Hugh Callaghan, Patrick Joseph Hill, Gerard Hunter, Richard McIlkenny, William Power and John Walker. On this particular day, the Prosecution admitted that the men were physically assaulted whilst in custody.
On that same day Gunner Anthony Jeal (20) of the Royal Artillery died somewhere in Northern Ireland and his cause of death, officially at least, is described as ‘unknown.’ It is thought that he lived in the Lancaster area. The author received unconfirmed information that the young Gunner may have been overcome by fumes following an accidental fire; yet another source suggests that he may have fallen from a fast-moving military vehicle. However, after further enquiries, I received an e-mail from someone in 23 Battery, RA informing me that Gunner Jeal was involved in an explosion at Mahon Road Camp, Portadown. The tragic accident happened in the stores and another Gunner was also badly burned, but survived. Gunner Jeal died the day after the accident in hospital.
Five days after the murder of the RUC man, the non-sectarian PIRA abducted a Protestant bar worker from outside a UDA club in North Belfast and took him to the Republican Ardoyne area. James Carberry (20) was taken to a back room at the club where he was beaten, before being blindfolded and taken to the Old Templepatrick Road in the western outskirts of Belfast. Once there, he was bundled out of the car and shot dead.