by Ken Wharton
On Tuesday, 16th, the Prime Minister Harold Wilson announced that he was resigning as leader of the Labour Party and thus as Prime Minister. James Callaghan succeeded him three weeks later. Shortly after this announcement, the Army were called out to Dungannon, Co Tyrone where a major tragedy was to take place the following day at the Hillcrest Inn. The IRA had left a 200lb device outside the Five Star Garage in Balleygawley Road and a warning was telephoned through to the RUC who attended with Army bomb disposal experts.
The 17th was another black day in Northern Ireland, as five people died, all at the hands of Loyalist terrorists. John Donnelley (44) was a teacher, and a Catholic, who lived in the Divis flats in Belfast. He had gone into East Belfast and was drinking in the Cregagh Inn in Woodstock Road, close to the Ormeau Embankment. It is thought that he was identified to UDA/UFF gunmen who were in the pub at the time as a Catholic by a former pupil. He was forced outside in full view of customers and taken around the back and stabbed to death.
Shortly afterwards, the UVF attacked a Catholic bar in Donaghmore Road Dungannon, Co Tyrone. That day, St Patrick’s Day, was widely expected to see a Loyalist ‘backlash’ and the terror group responded as they had been expected. They drove a stolen car packed with explosives and parked it outside the Hillcrest Bar which was packed with St Paddy’s Day drinkers and there were children outside, playing in the street. When the car bomb exploded, it wrecked the bar, killing two drinkers and seriously injuring up to 20 more. Tragically it killed one child in the street and mortally wounded another. James McCaughey (13) was killed instantly and his friend Patrick Barnard (13) was dreadfully injured and died in hospital the following day. Inside the bar, Andrew Small (62) and Joseph Kelly (57) were both killed and died almost immediately.
Earlier that day an RUCR Constable had been shot by IRA gunmen at Derrylin, Co Fermanagh, when his patrol car was ambushed. He was a rear seat passenger and was hit in the neck, but survived his wounds after the attack by at least three gunmen. Two days later, there was a further lucky escape for soldiers when the IRA’s Creggan unit launched an attack on the camp at Piggery Ridge in the Creggan Estate, Londonderry. Armed men had taken over a house at Rinmore Drive on the western outskirts of the notorious estate, keeping the family hostage. Somewhat irresponsibly they launched a total of seven mortars at the camp, the explosive projectiles travelling across residential rooftops and one actually made a direct hit on soldiers’ sleeping quarters. Fortunately, all the men were out on foot patrol at the time and there were no injuries. The border with the Republic is only 1½ miles away from the firing point and the IRA men had a relatively simple task of making the sanctuary of the Republic. Another Army base at Fort George in the same city was also hit by PIRA mortars fired from the Strand Road area; there were no injuries and four of the mortars failed to explode.
On the 25th, Secretary of State for Northern Ireland Merlyn Rees made a speech in the House of Commons in which he indicated a change in security policy for Northern Ireland. The decision meant that the RUC were to take the leading role in security in Northern Ireland; previously this had been the responsibility of the British Army. The policy was referred to as ‘police primacy’ and also, as the ‘Ulsterisation’ of the conflict. This referred to the fact that the RUC and the Ulster Defence Regiment (UDR) were to find themselves more and more in the front line. This was reflected in the increase in numbers of personnel in the RUC and the UDR and the reduction in the level of British troops. The policies also led to a period of poor relations between the police and the British Army.
Two days afterwards, there was another tragic RTA in the Province, with this one leading to the death of Private William Ovens (33) of the UDR. No further information is available at the time of publication.
On 27 March a bomb placed by PIRA’s England team exploded in a litter bin at the top of an escalator in a crowded exhibition hall at Olympia, Earl’s Court. 20,000 people were attending the Daily Mail Ideal Home Exhibition at the time. 70 were injured, four people lost limbs and one woman, Rachel Hymans was fatally wounded, dying some three weeks later.
On the 29th, there were further lucky escapes for the Army, when PIRA succeeded in leaving a large device next to an Army OP in the Oldpark area of North Belfast. In the explosion, four soldiers were injured but there were no fatalities on this occasion. Minutes after this, an RUC foot patrol at the nearby Unity Flats were fired at from gunmen in the upper floors but none of the policemen were hit. A search of the flats was not possible because of immediate rioting and the weapons were not recovered. Over the course of the following two days, however, there was to be no lucky escapes and PIRA killed four soldiers, three of whom were from Scottish Regiments, and CVOs made their sad journeys to homes in Midlothian, Scotland and to Manchester. On the 30th, an Army unit was called to the Lurgan area to search the Ballygargan Orange Lodge Hall in the small Co Armagh village. As the soldiers from the Royal Regiment of Fusiliers (RRF) were searching the outside, Corporal Donald Traynor (28) accidentally triggered off a booby-trapped device and was killed instantly in the blast. Two other comrades standing nearby were seriously injured. Corporal Traynor’s funeral was held in Swinton, Greater Manchester.
As the month ground to a halt, the Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association (NICRA) called off its rent and rates strike which had been started as a campaign of civil disobedience against the introduction of Internment. Many of those who had taken part in the protest were left with horrendous rent arrears and in many cases money was deducted from welfare benefit payments to recoup the amounts owing. Apparently it was ok to shoot and blow up soldiers, riot against law and order and call for the secession of Northern Ireland from the UK but at the same time accept with alacrity state benefits and handouts. In Keady, Co Armagh, two soldiers had a miraculous escape when a 3lb explosive device was thrown into their sangar outside the RUC station but failed to explode. Under ROE they were entitled to open fire and indeed did so as the bomber ran away. They failed to hit the terrorist and no doubt had they done so, Lost Lives would have added the words: ‘under disputed circumstances.’
On the final day of March, a mobile patrol from the Royal Scots was driving in the Belleeks, Co Armagh area; the patrol was routine, but for three of the Scots lads, it was to be their final one. Unknown to the soldiers, PIRA had planted a massive landmine in a culvert under a bridge at Carrickgalloghy Bridge between Newtownhamilton and Newry. Watching bombers saw the Land Rover enter the bridge from a firing position about 200 yards away and detonated the device. A huge explosion blasted the Land Rover into the air, instantly killing three of the men on board as they were thrown out, but a fourth somehow survived, suffering, somewhat miraculously, only bruises and lacerations. The wrecked vehicle landed upside down in a stream underneath the bridge. A second vehicle following close behind was undamaged and the shocked men snapped into action, first forming allround defence and then going to the aid of their stricken comrades. The dead soldiers were: Private Roderick Bannon (25), father of a young child; Private David Ferguson (20) also the father of a young child and Private John Pearson (23). Those two children will be now be in their late thirties and both have grown up without their real fathers.
Pick-up from a rural location in South Armagh. (Mark ‘C’)
Jean King, Brother of Private Ferguson
Davie/Robert, you were one of the best; you were always happy and grateful for anything you were given and you never asked for much. You were a very loving husband, father, son, brother, grandson, uncle, nephew and friend. We promise that you will never be forgotten and the future generations of our family will always be told about you. Until we meet again: fly with the Angels.
Not content with this carnage, a PIRA car bomb exploded in the centre of Belfast and no warning was given. Several people – civilians – were treated in hospital for the effects of shock when a car exploded at the junction of Great Patrick Street and York Street; there were no fatalities.
A total of 25 people had been killed
or died from their injuries during the month of March. The Army lost nine soldiers; five in RTAs and four to terrorism. In a mixture of terrorist killings and sectarian murders, 13 innocent civilians were killed; eight Catholic and three Protestant. Two Loyalists were killed in feuding and internal arguments. In total, Loyalists were responsible for nine deaths that month, and Republicans for nine. Nine of the deaths this month were overtly sectarian.
16
April
Seven more soldiers would die this month, six of them members of the UDR, as the Regiment came under even more pressure as the Provisionals stepped up their war of terror on off-duty members. The UVF were bent on killing as many Catholics as possible and made four separate fatal bombing attacks on Catholic-owned or frequented bars.
The month began with the death of a UDR soldier, Private John McCutcheon (48) who worked for a cement company – Macrete Concrete at Creagh, near Toomebridge in Co Londonderry. He had arrived for an early morning shift when he was ambushed by waiting terrorists and shot dead; his body was found by work colleagues as they arrived for work some time afterwards; his four children were left fatherless by this attack. A further five children would also be left to face their lives without their father the following day when the Provisionals ambushed another off-duty UDR soldier.
Máire Drumm was the vice president of Sinn Féin and a commander in Cumann na mBan (the Women’s IRA). She was killed by loyalists whilst waiting for an operation in Belfast’s Mater Hospital in October of this year. She was active in the Republican movement after meeting her husband, an IRA prisoner, and became involved in the Civil Rights movement in the 1960s. She was an outspoken critic of both the RUC and the British Army and was a major obstacle in the cause of a negotiated peace. On the 2nd, she lodged a complaint, alleging that soldiers had been throwing bricks at her house in West Belfast. This claim was never substantiated and she continued her constant obstruction of the SF. Her health deteriorated towards the end of the year and she was admitted to hospital in October. Her death is dealt with in Chapter 22.
Whether or not soldiers were guilty of this transgression was a moot point as the same terrorist group which Ms Drumm supported killed another UDR soldier later that same day. Robert ‘Bobby’ Lennox (61) and a father of five was a Staff Sergeant in the UDR and his full-time job was that of a postman. He was delivering letters to an isolated farm at Knockloughrim at Maghera in Co Londonderry when he was attacked. He approached the farm in his GPO van but as he got out, armed men hiding behind bushes shot him and he fell to the ground. As he lay helpless, the PIRA murder gang fired a further 20 shots into his prostrate body.
Two days later, on the 4th, justice, albeit in a somewhat sordid manner, finally caught up with Margaret Gamble (38) when she was stabbed and left mortally wounded in Glandore Gardens close to Belfast’s Antrim Road. She had been involved in the ‘honey trap’ killings of three soldiers and near fatal wounding of a fourth in March 1973 (see Chapter 3 of Sir, They’re Taking The Kids Indoors by the same author). Her involvement had been to lure four off-duty HQNI soldiers to a flat in the Antrim Road where three of the unarmed men were shot to death. Gamble was attacked by at least two men – in all likelihood from the UVF – and stabbed in the heart; she died shortly afterwards. Poignantly, her brother was killed in a Loyalist bombing, at McLaughlin’s, the previous year. The Grand National Day bombing is covered in Chapter 4 of this book.
On the same day, PIRA launched another mortar attack on an Army base at Lisanelly Barracks in Gorton Road, Armagh; no soldiers were injured in the incident. In separate parts of Belfast gunmen fired shots at Army foot patrols; one soldier was wounded but not seriously, and the UVF fired shots at the Rose and Crown Bar on the Ormeau Road and also shot at an 18-year old Catholic, but fortunately he was uninjured.
On 5 and 6 April, the Provisionals caused utter chaos in Belfast City Centre as they set off a series of bombs in different parts of the business area. Bombs exploded at two hotels, several shops and an office as they re-booted their economic warfare campaign. Amongst the attacks was a no-warning explosion at an office in Royal Avenue, followed by an attack on the ‘Milky Way’ Café a few yards away. Several civilians were treated for shock but there were no fatalities. The day after, attacks were made on the Shakespeare Bar in Victoria Street amongst several others during the day. The RUC were vigilant, however, and a car containing several PIRA bombers was rammed and then chased to a standstill and the men were arrested.
Also on the 5th, the IRA targeted an off-duty UDR soldier, Private Robert McConnell (32) at a farm close to Newtownhamilton in Co Armagh. The UDR soldier was en-route to his elderly father’s house when he was confronted by armed men who opened fire in a narrow lane at Rullyvallen. He was shot several times in the head and suffered mortal wounds, dying on the way to hospital. As well as being a part-time soldier, and a carer to an invalid relative, he also worked at the Courage Brewery in Tandgragee. He is buried at the Church of Ireland cemetery in Newtownhamilton.
Later that day, following three explosions at a hotel, an armed IRA unit forced their way into a house in the South Belfast suburb of Dunmurry and held the householder at gunpoint and demanded the keys to his car. For once, PIRA Int had not done their homework and the man they held at gunpoint was an RUCR officer, off-duty. He bravely explained that the keys were upstairs and, followed by the gunman, led him to an upstairs room whereupon he produced his service revolver and shot him, fatally wounding him. The gunman – Sean McDermott (20) – fired back, slightly wounding the policeman. Two other members of the gang escaped, but were captured shortly afterwards. The two were Mairead Farrell, who was killed by the SAS in Gibraltar in 1988 as a PIRA unit attempted to plant a device at a military parade, and Kieran Doherty who died on hunger strike in 1981.
On that same Monday, in what might have easily been another tragedy with a similar outcome to the Gary Barlow murder (see Sir They’re Taking The Kids Indoors chapter 4) a soldier was separated from his foot patrol in the Bridge Street area of Portadown. As a mob closed in on the lone soldier, he was spotted by his company commander who fired warning shots in order to disperse the mob. In Clogher, there was a miraculous escape for three soldiers on a mobile patrol, when a PIRA culvert bomb was detonated as their Land Rover passed by it, just outside Altnagelvin. The Land Rover was wrecked, being blown into the air and landing on its roof but all three men escaped with cuts and bruises.
The day after, a UDR mobile patrol was attacked by the IRA close to Middletown in Co Armagh, leading to the death of a female soldier. Middletown, historically known as Killecannagan from the Irish: Coillidh Chanannáin is known for its picturesque countryside, mostly for its rolling green hills. On that fateful Tuesday, a two-vehicle patrol was travelling en-route for Armagh City when shots were fired, hitting the driver and causing their Land Rover to flip over. Former WRAC, Gillian Liggett (33) was mortally wounded in the head. Her comrades returned fire and the terrorists escaped in the direction of the Irish border, which is a few short miles away. Lance Corporal Liggett died at the scene.
The deaths continued and the following day, a PIRA unit – possibly acting independently of the IRA’s Army Council – set off two incendiary devices at Protestant business premises in Dromore, Co Down and another business in the town. The Herron family were Protestants and ran a soft furnishings business; they had previously been intimidated out of other areas by Nationalists. Three members of the Herron family – William (64), his wife Elizabeth (58) and their daughter Noeleen (27) – were overcome by fumes and died in their sleep; death was due to carbon monoxide poisoning. No deaths or injuries were caused in the other – overtly sectarian – attack. However, a Protestant shop owner was shot several times in the chest and stomach, probably by the same gang; he fortunately survived.
On 8 April, in a campaign linked to the Government’s ending of special category status amongst both Republican and Loyalist prisoners, an armed PIRA gang targeted a prison officer as he left home in Mountfiel
d Park, Co Tyrone for work. Patrick Dillon (36), father of five was sitting in his car just outside his home when it was hit from behind in an apparent ‘accident.’ As he got out to investigate, he was shot by one of the gunmen and died very shortly afterwards. Another prison officer was also killed later that month.
On Friday 9th, the UVF targeted separate Catholic-owned and frequented bars in both Belfast and Armagh City; both with fatal results. First of all, masked UVF men threw an explosive device into the Divis Castle bar on Springfield Road in Belfast. The device exploded and Mr Francis Mallon (51) was killed instantly and a further four people were badly injured. A second UVF unit then targeted another Catholic bar in Railway Street, Armagh where Lenny’s Bar was located. A man threw a device inside the entrance and then ran off. The drinkers made an attempt to get clear but it exploded and one man was killed instantly and over a dozen were injured, some terribly. Michael Sweeney (73) a local ‘lollipop man’ who worked at a nearby school was not fast enough to get clear and didn’t stand a chance.
There was a miraculous escape early the following morning, when a massive PIRA culvert bomb was discovered on the Forkhill Road in South Armagh. The device failed to explode on a major Army mobile patrol route and it was defused by ATO. Hours later, PIRA gunmen engaged in a minor firefight with a British Army foot patrol on the Carnhill Estate in Londonderry. Soldiers returned fire and the gunmen ran away; the Army suffered no casualties. What turned out to be a major weekend of violence continued with attacks on soldiers in Jonesborough, South Armagh and on the Short Strand in East Belfast. In the former case, a foot patrol from the Green Howards was crossing Flurry Bridge a few hundred yards from the Irish border when PIRA gunmen opened fire. The soldiers returned fire and at least two terrorists were wounded. In the latter incident, a Catholic from Clyde Street on the Short Strand was shot and wounded by soldiers when he attacked a member of a foot patrol and attempted to wrestle his SLR from his grasp.