by Ken Wharton
The UFF were busy a day later and one of their units made a gun and bomb attack on a Catholic bar in Main Street, Londonderry. McLaughlin’s Bar was still quite busy at the time and masked gunmen entered just before 23:00 hours and fired automatic weapons indiscriminately into the dozen or so drinkers. Colin Lynch (18) an innocent Catholic was hit several times and died at the scene.
On the 18th, Paul Best (19) died of the injuries he had received the previous November (see Chapter 11). He had been shot and badly wounded by an OIRA gunman during feuding in the Andersonstown area with PIRA. Multiple shots were fired and several people were wounded during the internecine struggle between both wings of the IRA.
The term internecine was not the exclusive property of the Republican paramilitaries and Loyalists also practiced the ‘art’ of keeping their killings indoors, so to speak. Desmond Finney (33) was a lorry driver who had once been a member of the UVF and had apparently fallen out with his former comrades. The UVF, with their ‘evidence’ based on hearsay, accused him of touting and he was marked for death. On the morning of the 19th, a UVF murder gang was waiting for him at his place of work in Manderson Place, Belfast. As he arrived at Thompson’s Butchers, the waiting gang shot him in the head at very close range. The shots were heard by locals who alerted the RUC. Officers found him dead, slumped at the steering wheel of his car with the engine still running.
Sometime during the afternoon of Saturday 21 February, a PIRA unit set up an illegal vehicle checkpoint (IVCP) at Killeen, Co Armagh, close to the Irish border. A Newry couple and their son were driving on the road and were stopped by a burning lorry but were waved through by masked gunmen. However, as they passed through shots were fired, mortally wounding Marjorie Lockington (57) and slightly wounding her husband. She died in hospital later that evening. PIRA were responsible but to date, no apology has been issued by the terrorist organisation.
SOUTH ARMAGH, 1976
Driver Alasdair Sutherland Royal Corps of Transport
This time I was based in the brand new Gough Barracks just outside Armagh city, with other detachments out with the infantry at Bessbrook Mill, Crossmaglen, Forkhill, Keady, Newtownhamilton and Aughnacloy all along the border. Nothing had changed; it was back to patrolling, stand by, VCPs etc. This time I was with Queen’s Company, Grenadier Guards with strange ranks, where Lance Sergeants were really Corporals and you could only tell a Sergeant because he wore a red sash in dress uniform, but here everyone wore combats, I was very confused.
Then one day I was sent to a little outpost called Glenanne where the Support Company of the Grenadiers was based in a small UDR camp on the edge of the village. My job was to man the .30 calibre Browning machine gun in the turret while the troops carried out the VCPs, then I was back into the driver’s seat and back on patrol. Our Saracens were very noisy and we were limited to 30mph as they tended to roll over really easily; the vision from the driving slits was very limited and you had to rely on the commander in the turret to guide you through narrow gaps.
This was my life again, I worked as part of this little team driving all the vehicles, I recall driving along the narrow lanes in our stripped down Land Rovers with no lights on, driving by moonlight, the wind blowing flies and dust into our faces, tears from the dust streaming down our faces. It was exhilarating real soldiering; we loved it.
Sometimes we went out in civvies in Commer vans and dropped off the troops along the border; usually these troops were long-haired types carrying Armalite rifles and other items we did not have and came into Glenanne by helicopter for a few days then disappeared again. Driving around South Armagh was a little hairy as the IRA put out IVCP’s and there was a couple of times we prepared to shoot our way out of what we thought was an IRA roadblock, only to find as we got closer it was the local part-time UDR unit carrying out their duties. We usually carried 9mm pistols if we were in the Hillman Imp or if we were in the Commer there was always an SLR in the back. It was always scary being in civvies and there was a contact report in the area, I think we were more scared about being shot by our own side than by PIRA.
I recall breaking down once in the Commer in the middle of nowhere and we had no radio comms with the Glenanne base. I had to sit in the back of the van with my SLR in case the Boyo’s stumbled across us. Luckily some of the local UDR guys going in for duty came across us first and got the REME out to repair the van, on another occasion we came across the UDR with their Land Rover upside down in the road we thought they had hit a culvert mine but they had skidded on black ice.
I then served at Keady and Newtownhamilton with the Black Watch where duties were always patrols and standby. In Keady there was a shooting in the village which we all ran down the street to, one of the patrols had spotted a gunman in the street who fled after being challenged; after a few minutes a window in the nearby pub opened and one of the patrol shot the gunman through the window, again I was on the cordon.
We also took part in a large operation to rebuild Crossmaglen RUC base after it was mortared by the Provisionals; roads leading into the town were cleared of culvert mines and the roads were secured by OPs all along the route. The Royal Engineers them moved in by road and rebuilt the security base, I spent four-five days with the Grenadier Guards in a farmyard observing and clearing our section of road; we had a few interesting finds along the way.
On Monday 23, the Shankill Butchers struck again. Francis Rice (24), a Catholic, was abducted, beaten and had his throat cut by Murphy and his murderous cronies. His body was found near Mayo Street, just off the Shankill Road. Mr Rice’s body was dumped just a few streets away from Murphy’s home and he was found in the early hours of the morning. There was a popular song relating to the ‘Butchers’ sung to children to warn them of the dangers that faced them in the violent world that was Belfast in the Troubles. One assumes that they were not intended as a lullaby! The following is a selection of the ‘lyrics’:
The Shankill butchers ride tonight. You better shut your windows tight. They’re sharpening their cleavers and their knives and taking all their whiskey by the pint, ’cause everybody knows if you don’t mind your mother’s words, a wicked wind will blow your ribbons from your curls. Everybody moan, everybody shake, the Shankill butchers wanna catch you awake.
On the 26th, a soldier was killed at his farm near Newtownhamilton, Co Antrim. Private Joseph McCullough (57) was a part-time soldier in the UDR and a full-time farmer. He knew that his life was in danger – like all other members of the regiment – and he had taken to staying with friends and returning to his farm in order to carry out work on an irregular basis in order to avoid Republican murder gangs. However, he was assaulted on a lane near the farm and stabbed to death by PIRA members who knifed him half a dozen times and cut his throat. He was one of three UDR men in the immediate neighbourhood to be killed by the Provisionals.
On the 27th, one man was killed and another mortally wounded in two separate incidents in the Province. Despite the almost daily sectarian murders, firefights between the Army and Republicans and seemingly daily bombings, life in the Province had to continue. The essential services which included electricity supply simply had to continue despite the country being virtually one war-zone. One man attempting to do this was an Inspector for the NIES (Northern Ireland Electricity Service) by the name of Harold Blair (35) who was working in the Stranmillis Road area of Belfast, close to Stranmillis Embankment. A booby-trapped device had been left in a ruined house and as Mr Blair attempted to open the door, it exploded, mortally wounding him. He died the following day in hospital. Later that day, as UVF member Kenneth Leneghan (34) chatted to three other men outside a Loyalist club (Victor’s Bar, Donegal Pass) in Belfast, he was shot by the IRA. A car drove up to the entrance to the club and opened fire, killing the UVF man and wounding his three companions. It was the last killing of the month.
On or about the 28/29 February, members of the UDA/UFF abducted a barman from a UDA drinking club, the Salisbury Bar just off the Shankill Road.
Alexander Jamison was suspected of being an informant and the paranoid Loyalist paramilitaries in all likelihood had based their decision to abduct and kill him on purely circumstantial evidence alone. Often times, these killings came as a consequence of score-settling or just plain jealousy. His body was discovered on 5 March.
A total of 28 people had been killed or died from their injuries in February. The Army lost one soldier and three RUC officers were killed. In a mixture of terrorist killings and sectarian murders, 17 innocent civilians were killed; seven Catholic and nine Protestant. Five Republicans were killed in a mixture of own goal explosions, hunger strike and British Army involvement and the Loyalist paramilitaries lost two. In total, Loyalists were responsible for 10 deaths that month, including Shankill Butchers’ involvement in two and Republicans for 10.
15
March
This month would witness the deaths of 10 soldiers or former soldiers killed because of their association with the SF; five of them would die as a consequence of RTAs and it seems that the roads were almost as big a killer of soldiers as terrorists.
On 1 March, Secretary of State for Northern Ireland Merlyn Rees announced that those people convicted of causing terrorist offences would no longer be entitled to special category status. In other words they were to be treated as ordinary criminals. This was part of a process, called ‘criminalisation’, and one which saw the British government move from trying to reach a settlement with the IRA to treating it as a conflict; the attitude is in marked contrast to the ‘official’ attitude that it was not a war.
On that same day, an explosion badly damaged the main GPO building in the centre of Newry, Co Down. Masked men placed devices in the building and staff and customers fled for shelter and telephoned the SF. In contrast to their previous tactics of bomb and run, the PIRA team waited for the RUC and the Army to appear at the scene and then opened fire on them. Soldiers returned fire but none of the bombers were hit. One bomb exploded and a second device was defused by the Army. Later in Londonderry, a PIRA attempt to assassinate an RUCR officer was thwarted and despite several shots being fired at him, the man was unharmed. That eventful day ended with a UVF bomb attack on a Catholic church in Co Armagh. A young girl received bad eye injuries and was rushed to hospital in Belfast; there were no deaths. There was also a lucky escape for an RUC patrol which had been called out to reports of a burning car in Newry. As they arrived, a gunman – either PIRA or INLA – opened fire on them but neither policeman was hit.
On the 2nd and 4th, there were major attempts to cause deaths and maiming by an IRA ASU in London, showing that, despite the arrests of the Balcombe Street gang, the terrorists still had the capacity to strike on the British mainland. A 26-year old man was seriously injured when a bomb was placed close to a parked car in Stanhope Gardens, Kensington. The device exploded as he approached the car and he was caught by the blast and rushed to hospital. It is thought that the same team also planted a large device on a train in London. Minutes after over 700 passengers and staff had been evacuated the device exploded and completely obliterated one of the carriages on the Kent-Central London train. Passengers on a passing train were injured by the blast. A fatal attack on another train was, however, only 11 days away.
On Wednesday 3 March the trial of members of the Maguire family, known as the ‘Maguire Seven’, ended at the Old Bailey in London. They had been arrested on 3 December 1974. In what was one of three Troubles-related major miscarriages of British justice, all seven defendants were found guilty of possession of explosives. Their case was linked to that of the ‘Guildford Four’ who were found guilty at the Old Bailey on 22 October the previous year of the Guildford pub bombings (see Sir, They’re Taking The Kids Indoors by the same author). Anne Maguire was sentenced to 14 years; Patrick Maguire 14 years; Sean Smyth 14 years; Giuseppe Conlon 14 years; Pat O’Neill 12 years; Vincent Maguire (aged 16) five years; and Patrick Jnr. (aged 13) four years. Giuseppe Conlon, who tragically died in prison, was the father of one of the ‘Guildford Four’, Gerry Conlon. This author is happy to admit he experienced joy at the time, on hearing of the conviction of both the ‘Guildford Four’ and the ‘Maguire Seven.’ He is, however, equally pleased to admit that both were serious miscarriages of justice and delighted that they were all released, albeit after an unforgivable amount of time behind bars.
The author seen on the site of the now demolished North Howard Street Mill, Belfast. The ‘Peace Line’ can be seen in the background. (Author’s photo)
Alexander Jamison (47) was abducted the previous month from a Loyalist club on the Shankill (see previous chapter) and his body was discovered on the 5th. He was shot by the UDA/UFF and his body was dumped in a derelict house at Argyle Street close to the Army base at North Howard Street Mill. On the same day, a lone Catholic man was walking close to a sectarian interface in North Belfast when he was confronted by a lone gunman, thought to have been UVF. The gunman fired five rounds at him, seriously injuring him but he somehow survived his wounds.
Four days later, the UVF attacked a Catholic-owned bar, the Pheasant Inn in the Army garrison town of Lisburn, Co Antrim. Their actions killed two men and left 10 children fatherless. Masked men entered the bar in Ballynahinch Road, Baillies Mills, in the early part of the evening and the staff was forced at gunpoint into a storeroom before the two owners – both Catholics – Myles O’Reilly (41) and his brother Patrick (43) were singled out and taken to another part of the building where they were both shot; they died instantly. A bomb was then thrown into the bar by the retreating gunmen and the building was severely damaged in the explosion. The banner headline in The Irish News the next morning screamed ‘Brothers Die In Mass Murder Attempt’
Earlier on the same day, a stolen car containing a UVF bombing team crossed into the Irish Republic and headed for Castleblaney in Co Monaghan. They left a device in the centre of the market town, some two miles from the border with the North. No warnings were given and the device exploded, injuring dozens but mortally wounding Patrick Mohan (53).
On the 10th, the Provisionals shot and killed Samuel Smyth (46) a leading UDA/UFF member who had previously survived an assassination attempt by the UVF. He was visiting a relative in Alliance Avenue on the sectarian interface at the north end of the Ardoyne when PIRA gunmen burst into the house and shot him several times in the head; he died almost immediately.
Later that evening, the IRA attacked a Protestant-owned bar – the Homestead Inn at Lisburn – and opened fire indiscriminately on the drinkers. In the carnage, Robert Dorman (60) was killed outright. The next day, an IRA gang called at the home of Harry Scott (64) and finding him not there, forced his grandson to go to Mr Scott’s local pub and ask him to come outside. As he did so, the gunmen shot him. His crime? He was accused of allowing his house to be used for UVF meetings; he was mortally wounded; Mr Scott died shortly afterwards. It was simply, but tragically, a case of ‘anything the Loyalists can do, we can do better.’ It was such a pity that innocents on both sides of the sectarian chasm – for it was no longer merely a divide – had to be slaughtered to illustrate their point.
On the 13th, a drunken argument in a Loyalist club in the Shankill area spilled out into the street and a man was beaten to death by fists, feet and finally smashed over the head with a metal beer keg. The man who died was a UVF member, Alexander Frame (26) and he was killed by UDA/UFF men; his body was dumped in the area close to the Bayardo Bar which had been the scene of a PIRA gun and bomb attack. Because it involved rival Loyalist paramilitaries, this death is included in the toll of the Troubles. Retaliation by the UVF was swift.
Over the course of his writing, the author has identified at least three former Army personnel killed as a direct consequence of the Troubles; this excludes former UDR members who are dealt with separately because of their unique circumstances. Those identified were: Brian Shaw (ex-RGJ) who was murdered by the IRA in the Lower Falls area on 21/07/74; Nicholas White (ex-Queen’s) murdered by the IRA in Ardoyne on 13/0
3/76 and John Lee (ex-Parachute Regt) also murdered by the IRA in Ardoyne on 27/02/77. Nicholas ‘Nicky’ White had met and fallen in love with a Belfast girl and, having bought himself out of the Army had married her and returned to live in Belfast.
He was well known in the area as ‘Nick the Brit’ and in working locally in the building trade and also for the local youth associations, he made no attempt to disguise his past. On the 13th, he answered a knock on the door of the Ardoyne Community Shop where he was running a children’s disco and was shot several times in the head and chest at very close range by a PIRA gunman. He was rushed to hospital but died the following day, a victim of a cowardly Republican attack; Nicholas White was 34.
Also on the 13th, a total of four British soldiers were killed in three different RTAs in the Province. RAOC soldiers Corporal Douglas Whitfield (31) and Sergeant Michael Peacock (36) were both killed in the same accident when it is thought an Army Bedford lorry crashed en-route for Belfast Docks at the end of their unit’s tour. Corporal Whitfield was from the Midlands and Sergeant Peacock was from the Southampton area. Gunner James Reynolds (22) of the Royal Artillery was killed in a separate accident and Signalman David Roberts (20) RCS, also died that day in an RTA; he was from South Wales. The author has no further details.
The remnants of PIRA’s decimated England team made an attack on a London Underground train on the 15th, intending to cause heavy loss of life during the evening rush hour. However, the bomber accidentally set off his device too early and though injured, was still alive, although another six people were injured. He was confronted by a brave but foolhardy train driver and the terrorist shot him at close range. Julius Stephen (34), the driver, died shortly afterwards and the gunman also shot and seriously wounded a passenger who had come to the driver’s aid; the injured man was a GPO engineer. The gunman raced off into the darkened tunnel where he was eventually cornered by armed police. He shot himself in the stomach and was then apprehended and taken to hospital where he survived to stand trial for the murder of Mr Stephen.