The British Army in Northern Ireland 1975-77

by Ken Wharton

  Please remember that this was over 36 years ago, so some of the details are bit blurred but it’s the way I see it in my mind’s eye; it was also one of the main reasons I later became a UDR soldier, to try and help prevent this type of incident happening again in my country.

  The following day, a Loyalist murder gang – thought to have been the UFF – attacked a Catholic businessman at his home in Upper Cavehill Road in North Belfast. The 55-year old waste paper merchant was badly injured but survived the sectarian murder attempt. There was also another attack on a Catholic-owned and frequented bar – the Glen Inn at Glengormley – but the 10lb device caused only minor cuts and bruises and shock to the drinkers there; the slaughter at the Chlorane was, however, only minutes away.

  On a trip to Belfast in 2012, the author walked down Gresham Street close to Smithfield Market where the Chlorane Bar had been located. In its place is now a large car park and diagonally opposite is a new – still Nationalist – pub which trades under ‘The Hudson Bar.’ Back in 1976, the Chlorane’s drinkers were from both sides of the sectarian divide; an unusual and by no means widespread feature of the Troubles. It had been the subject of a firebomb attack some three years prior to the Loyalist attack of 5 June. That attack was made by the UFF and the UVF sought to show their fellow Loyalists how to do the job ‘correctly.’ What was the most significant point, was why the decision was taken to break the cease-fire which had, at this stage only existed for 14 days.

  Two UVF units which operated from the Brown Bear and Windsor Bar in the Shankill Road planned the attack and their intention was to cause maximum casualties. The gang hijacked a taxi outside another bar, holding the driver and an unfortunate passenger hostage under the supervision of armed men. The taxi was driven eastwards towards the city centre and contained at least five UVF members and attracted no attention from either the RUC or soldiers; even during the Troubles, men from both communities still continued their social drinking habits. Upon arrival at the Chlorane Bar at 22:00 hours, four of the gunmen donned their masks, and jumped out of the taxi with the driver remaining inside, with the engine running in the manner of a normal waiting taxi.

  As usual for a Saturday night, the bar was packed with drinkers and it was still only dusk as the long evenings of the British summer kicked in. The four masked men burst through the front doors and charged inside. One of the four gunmen was Robert ‘Basher’ Bates, a member of the Shankill Butchers gang. Once inside, they ordered everybody to stand up, and then demanded to know if there were any Protestants there. One such person, convinced that it was the IRA, ran from the room and barricaded himself into a toilet. The frightened customers were then separated into two separate groups, based on their respective religions.

  Site of the former Chlorane Bar which was attacked by the UVF on 5 June 1976 when five innocent Catholics were murdered. (Author’s photo)

  Edward Farrell (45), a Catholic, tried to run towards the toilet but was shot twice in the back and head and died almost instantly. The owner of the Chlorane, James Coyle (64), and known by the UVF team to be a Catholic was still standing behind the bar when a gunman shot him in the heart at point-blank range; he also died almost instantly. At that stage, the other gunmen began firing indiscriminately, and two Protestants were struck by the hail of bullets. Daniel McNeil (47), a father of five was hit and killed instantly and a friend Samuel Corr (53) was mortally wounded and died minutes later. He was attended to by a member of the RUC after the gunmen had fled, but he died before medical assistance could reach him.

  A Catholic, John Martin (59) was fatally wounded and died 18 days later, and several other customers were also hit and wounded, some badly in the indiscriminate shooting. One customer pretended to be dead but one of the gunmen stood over him and fired several shots into his lower body, badly wounding him. One of the gunmen then went into the toilets where a Protestant – a Mr William Greer – was hiding; unable to force the door open, the gunman fired several shots through the door, badly wounding the man who survived. Several other drinkers in the upstairs bar were left untouched and with no visible means of escape, must have been terrified thinking that they would be next. However, one of the murder gang called out the simple words: ‘That’s it!’ and they left the bar and climbed into the waiting taxi and removed their masks.

  The hijacked taxi then drove up North Street in the direction of the Shankill, but paused outside the Catholic Unity flats and fired several times at a group of youths standing outside the flats. They abandoned the taxi in Beresford Street in the Shankill and then released the driver and his fellow hostage. They then entered the Long Bar and celebrated the deaths of four innocent men and the fatal wounding of a fifth. Less than two weeks later, the UVF returned to the Chlorane and totally destroyed it with a large explosive device.

  On that same Saturday night, a UVF bombing gang struck at the seaside town of Portaferry, Co Down, a location hitherto untouched by the Troubles. The small town which sits at the lower end of the Ards Peninsula and it is well known for its beautiful scenery and the warm welcome given to its visitors. Just an hour or so after the slaughter at the Chlorane, it ‘welcomed’ more visitors; a UVF gang with murder in its heart. The gang sought out the International Bar and placed a 15lb device in a stairway. It exploded as the bar was in full swing and the blast injured over a dozen, some four of whom received serious injuries and Christopher Byers (24) was struck by flying debris and died at the scene. Another attack took place, almost simultaneously this time, in Armagh. A Loyalist gang attacked the Rock Bar at Keady, South Armagh. A Catholic man – Michael McGrath, a 54-year old farmer – was shot in the stomach and seriously wounded. Saturday night was over and with five innocent civilians’ dead, at their hands, the UVF could no longer claim that they were observing a truce.

  The following morning, PIRA attempted to add to the growing list of RUC fatalities and attacked an off-duty policeman as he worshipped with his family on the Sunday. The officer had just arrived for Mass at St Comcille’s Church at Ballyhackmore in Belfast. He was wounded in the thigh and stomach by the masked gunman who ran off. He was chased by other police officers and a handgun was recovered. Later that day, Republican thugs opened fire on a Protestant man who was walking in the Lisbon Street area of Belfast, badly wounding him in the chest. The gunmen’s firing position was nearby Thompson Street and they ran off in the Cavehill direction of North Belfast. PIRA gunmen were also involved in an assassination attempt later in the day, when they shot at two men in a house on the mainly Catholic Suffolk estate in West Belfast. It is not certain if this involved an internal dispute as no explanations were ever forthcoming. Daniel McCann (50) was around at his brother-in-law’s house in Ringford Park when the gunmen shot him, fatally wounding him; he died of his injuries on the 17th.

  Checkpoint into the Bogside, Londonderry. (Walter Stirling)

  On the Monday morning, PIRA gunmen ambushed a mobile RUC patrol which was on routine – if anything which took place during the Troubles could ever be described as ‘routine’ – duties. Their car was travelling along a country road between Ardboe and Coagh in Co Tyrone when terrorists opened fire with automatic weapons. Two of the officers were hit and badly wounded; both survived. It was another harsh lesson for the RUC and clearly demonstrated a switch in targets from Army to Police and was the Provisionals not-so-subtle response to ‘Ulsterisation’ and Police Primacy. In less than six weeks, seven police officers had been killed and a further nine had been injured at the hands of the IRA. On that same Monday, the UFF shot and fatally wounded a Catholic man and injured his friend in what was a clearly sectarian shooting. Paul McNally (26) was standing outside the Crumlin Star Bar in the Ardoyne with a friend when a car, stolen in the nearby Shankill, drove up to the men and one person jumped out and fired several shots at them. Both men were hit, but Mr McNally was fatally wounded. The car drove off and two armed men ran off but were fired on by a passing Army patrol and one of the gunmen was hit but managed to escape. The badly woun
ded Catholic man died in hospital two days later.

  It was the Provisionals who made the next bombing attack when, on the Tuesday morning, they planted a large device at Stevenson & Turner Plumbers’ Merchants in the Smithfield Market area of Belfast. A warning was telephoned in, and the premises evacuated. However, a female employee was overlooked and she was left inside the building. In the very nick of time, her absence was noticed and two Belfast bus drivers raced into the premises and pulled her out. One of two bombs exploded, causing extensive damage but no loss of life and a second device was recovered intact by the Army’s EOD personnel. On that same morning, PIRA also attempted to kill a part-time soldier in the UDR. Masked gunmen entered the office of a Newry coal yard – Joseph Fisher Coal – fully aware that a part-time member of the SF was employed there. The unarmed soldier was shot a total of nine times and a co-worker was also shot; the badly wounded man was rushed to hospital and by some miracle, survived his wounds.

  On the 11th, a Republican gang, possibly acting independently of the Provisionals’ leadership, shot and mortally wounded William Palmer (50) at his home in Derriaghy in South Belfast. Masked gunmen entered his house and calmly shot him twice before walking out of the house and racing away in a stolen car. Mr Palmer was a victim of a purely sectarian attack by the supposedly non-sectarian Republicans and died a few hours later in hospital.

  There was an element of mystery about the death of a UDA/UFF member at the hands of the RUC on the following day. A routine VCP had been set up by the police on Shore Road in the Loyalist Rathcoole area in Belfast. A stolen car had chanced upon the checkpoint and the driver panicked and tried to accelerate away, but as he did so, he knocked over an officer and the man’s comrades fired approximately 12 rounds at the vehicle. Edward Walker (20) a UDA/UFF man was hit and died very shortly afterwards; his body was discovered when the stolen car crashed a short distance away. Three of the four other men in the car were also wounded but survived their injuries. There was speculation at the time that the UFF man was possibly a member of the squad which was sent to shoot Kevin Mulgrew.

  There was further evidence on that same day of the callously irresponsible way in which PIRA put their own communities at risk in their efforts to kill British soldiers. In the first instance, a mortar attack on the joint Army/RUC base in Andersonstown saw two mortars fall short and land amongst a group of children playing in the street. Neither device exploded, and the only treatment required was for shock. Had the mortars exploded, a dozen or more children would have been slaughtered and it would have been most interesting to see how the Provisionals’ bearded commander in West Belfast would have explained that. Four other rounds hit the base, but all failed to detonate. Within minutes, a major attack was made on another Army base, this time in the Broadway area close to the Falls Road. Gunmen with automatic weapons sprayed the camp and six mortars were fired at the living quarters. Four hit the base but two fell short and landed in the garden of a nurse living nearby; both failed to explode. One device exploded in mid-air and airborne shrapnel hit a nearby greyhound racing park and a final round detonated at the gates of the base but there were no injuries. In what was a clearly concerted strike, PIRA gunmen fired several shots at a third Army base at McRory Park on the Whiterock Road and shots were also fired at a foot patrol in the Lenadoon area.

  There was both tragedy and mystery surrounding the next Troubles-related death in the Province. On the evening of the 12th, an incident took place which has never been satisfactorily explained in the Co Down area. Liam Prince (27) a teacher from Clonallen Gardens in Warrenpoint was driving close to a foot patrol from 3 Para and was behind another car when a PIRA IED exploded. The blast knocked the soldiers off their feet, but there were no serious injuries and neither occupant of the two cars was injured although there was much smoke, noise and confusion. The soldiers quickly recovered and observed that the front car had its full headlights on and naturally screamed at the driver to turn them off. This instruction was eventually obeyed but at this moment, Mr Prince appears to have panicked and drove around the front car and straight at the soldiers. They immediately opened fire and he was hit several times and died at the scene. It was a complete tragedy and the loss of an innocent life; it was made even more tragic by the fact that the teacher was the son of a soldier, the brother of an RUC officer and was considering joining the police.

  The day after Mr Prince’s death, there was another similar incident, this time involving the RUC in Leeson Street, just off the Falls Road. A taxi driver is alleged to have opened fire from his vehicle at a police patrol and the officers naturally returned fire. The driver was hit, but as officers attempted to arrest the wounded man and seize the taxi which contained forensic evidence, an angry mob gathered and removed the vehicle and occupant before sufficient reinforcements would arrive from the RUC. Further research has failed to uncover any more facts surrounding the case, but no doubt a Sinn Fein apologist would have rubbished RUC claims of being fired upon and again the police would have been cast as villains in the eyes of the Nationalist community and the Irish-Americans in NORAID.

  A Loyalist gang was responsible for an attempted sectarian murder attempt in the Shankill on the following morning. Whether or not it was Loyalist Int or an opportunist attack behind the attack, a Catholic delivery man on his rounds in the Loyalist heartland was shot four times in the back and seriously wounded; the man survived the murder attempt.

  Belfast. (Walter Stirling)

  The first day of the British summer was but four days away, when the UFF, revelling in its role as ‘defenders of the Protestant community’ in the wake of the UVF’s alleged ceasefire, murdered two innocent Catholics. Patrick Meehan (48) a father of five and an employee of the Gas Board and Gerard Stitt (21) had separately boarded an Ulsterbus in the Ardoyne area, en-route for Belfast City Centre. At Crumlin Road, two men, both members of the UFF boarded the bus and went to the upstairs deck where the two Catholics were sitting and shot both men in the back of the head at very close range. They then walked downstairs and pointed their weapons at the driver and forced him to stop, before running off into the Shankill. Both men died before reaching hospital; poignantly, Mr Meehan was a regular blood-donor and was actually en-route to give blood that very morning.

  The following day, the tenuous and derisively oft-punctuated UVF ceasefire was again breached as they bombed a Catholic Bar on Belfast’s Shore Road. Conway’s had a chequered past insofar as the Troubles were concerned and was bombed twice before the latest attack on 18 June [see Sir, They’re Taking The Kids Indoors p.216 and this publication, Chapter 3] Robert Conway (51), a father of 12 children was drinking with friends when a Loyalist gang threw the device into the bar. It exploded almost immediately, and he was killed instantly with a further 36 injured, some terribly with several traumatic amputations. What followed over the course of the next several days was a fatal consequence of PIRA retaliatory actions. Several more deaths would occur as part of the almost ritualistic, certainly inevitable bloody game of ‘tit-for-tat.’

  19 June was ‘pay-back’ time; Wesley Nicholl (40), a father of five was a leading UDA/UFF member and fatally for him, PIRA knew where he lived. At least two members of the Andersonstown Provisionals visited his house in Larch Grove, Dunmurry in the south of Belfast; having ascertained his presence, they pushed past Mrs Nicholl and entered the lounge, shooting him dead as he slept on the settee. A very short time later, another PIRA gang, this time from the Ardoyne, burst into a house at Westland Road, midway between the Antrim Road and Cliftonville Golf Course in North Belfast. William Rankin (32) was apparently unconnected with the Loyalist paramilitaries, but had been regularly questioned by the RUC in relation to Loyalist violence; this, however, was enough for the Provisionals to determine his guilt and he was shot dead as he watched TV. Mr Rankin was an unemployed man and was connected with Westland United Football team in the city.

  Search team, Londonderry. (Walter Stirling)

  Further retaliation came
when an IRA unit entered a UDA club in Apsley Street, in the Loyalist Sandy Row area of Belfast. The gang threw an explosive device into the club and opened fire on the several drinkers inside. The device exploded causing only several cases of shock and one customer was shot in the hand and slightly wounded. The Loyalists sought immediate reprisals and an innocent Catholic youth – Gerard McMahon (19) – was accosted by Loyalist thugs in the centre of Lurgan that same evening. He was savagely punched and kicked and left fatally injured by the thugs; he died in hospital on the 22nd.

  The day after the Apsley Street bombing, Edward McNeill (22) a Catholic from the Andersonstown area, was found dead close to a UDA drinking den. The spot where his body was dumped was near the sectarian interface with the Nationalist Ardoyne. Mr McNeill had been drinking in the relative safety of the Ardoyne but had perhaps drunkenly wandered into the nearby Loyalist area and was assaulted and then brutally hacked about the throat, possibly by the Shankill Butchers, although this murder is not officially attributed to them. Even if this murder was not committed by Lenny Murphy, it was most certainly an overtly sectarian crime. In a matter which may or may not be related a lone Catholic was found with severe stab and slash wounds at the junction of Bilston Road and Crumlin Road; he survived his horrific wounds. Mr McNeill was found close to Alliance Parade, which is a fraction over half a mile from the site of the other attempted murder.