The British Army in Northern Ireland 1975-77

by Ken Wharton

  The dead children were Joanne Maguire (eight), Andrew (six weeks) and John (two); the first two were killed instantly and their brother, John died in hospital the following day, despite an incredible effort by medical staff to save his life. The dead PIRA man was Danny Lennon (23). There was a fourth child – Mark who was seven – who survived the carnage. Two local women Mairead Corrigan (an auntie of the dead children) and Betty Williams founded the Peace People movement. However, despite its initial success in winning the 1976 Nobel Prize For Peace and in gaining mass support across the sectarian divide the Republican and Loyalist paramilitaries were equally dedicated in discrediting it and committed to its downfall [see http://www.peacepeople.com].

  The second PIRA gunman in the car was Michael Chillingworth, who had fired an Armalite at the troops; he was shot as he tried to escape and an Armalite was recovered at the scene. Both wounded gunmen were given the kiss of life and medical treatment by the soldiers at the scene. Rioting followed news of the boy’s death and representatives of the Peace People were attacked by some of the rioters. The Peace People organisation was also denounced by Republicans as being ‘… pro-British…’

  THE DEATH OF THE MAGUIRE CHILDREN

  Major Andrew MacDonald, King’s Own Borderers

  On the day of this tragedy, 9th August, there was an IRA ‘come on’ disguised as a robbery at the Butcher’s shop in Rosareen Avenue, a few minutes away from the base. Two of the platoon’s vehicles were sent out to investigate and, although the distance involved was only several hundred metres, they were highly suspicious as the anniversary of internment is always a good day to settle scores with the Army. So they advanced with extreme caution.

  It only took a matter of minutes to react to the call and to get to the shops from the base. When the patrol arrived, it was deathly quiet; no one was about and it had the atmosphere that something was about to happen. And it did! The first shot fired was very close – it hit the field dressing which the commander had attached to his helmet in order to keep his visor propped open – sometimes you’re lucky! We used open-topped Land Rovers in those days – mainly for mobility and speedy deployment; not so good in a riot – and hence helmets with visors for each crew member. Three gunmen were seen running away, and two attempted to escape by car.

  The ‘contact’ report was sent, possibly by Steve. For those not-in-the-know, the contact report is sent immediately in reaction to an incident to provide everyone with sufficient information and act as a trigger for the reaction forces. I do not know the detail but the report was likely to include ‘Contact. No casualties; gunmen seen running in the area of… ..; am following up; wait out.’ It is the crispest, most succinct way of letting the reaction forces know what was happening. Immediately this was heard, the QRF [Quick Reaction Force] deployed to prearranged positions, which, in this instance, were two open-top Land Rovers with four men per vehicle. They screamed out of the base to set up pre-planned checkpoints to try to cut off any escape routes.

  The IRA shooters were Danny Lennon and Michael Chillingworth and both were well known IRA gunmen from the Andersonstown area. After they had shot at the lads, they made their escape in a blue Ford Cortina – stolen earlier, and a standard getaway car – and headed southwards down the Shaw’s Road towards Finaghy Road South. The QRF on hearing the contact report drove quickly to one of the pre-prepared positions – coincidentally along the getaway route.

  As Lennon and Chillingworth drove south at speed, the QRF vehicle slotted in behind, unaware that the Cortina in front contained the gunmen. The IRA driver must have panicked and thought that he was being chased and the passenger opened fire at the Land Rovers behind. This, of course, alerted to the soldiers that this was their quarry – big mistake – as all of them were good shots, but one, if I recall correctly, was a Bisley standard marksman. After some confusion about whether to stop and fire or drive on after the getaway car, they returned fire.

  The QRF fired four shots altogether. They hit the car, killing the driver. The car then went out of control mounted the pavement and tragically smashed into a mother with her three young children, innocently walking on the pavement, fatally injuring the children and seriously injuring the mother. After the car had crashed, the other gunman (carrying his Armalite automatic rifle) tried to run away. He was shot and seriously wounded, taking no further part in proceedings for a long while.

  There was criticism from some quarters of this incident but it was an accident and it could have been avoided if the IRA’s planned ‘come on’ had not taken place. They opened fire on soldiers twice in the space of minutes and their callousness, dreadful planning and ineptitude were primarily responsible for those deaths. One of the things which has been forgotten, is that members of the QRF and our medics from the base not only tried desperately to save the lives of the injured children, but also gave mouth to mouth resuscitation to one of the terrorists. Can you imagine an IRA gunman doing the same for a wounded squaddie?

  Author’s postscript to the Maguire Tragedy

  Although by now no longer a serving soldier, I nevertheless took a keen interest in the news from across the water and still grieved at the death of one of my former comrades. I only found out about the death of the tragically young Maguire babies – for that is what they were – the following morning. I was living in Leeds at the time and had just had my morning newspaper delivered to my house. There across the front page of the Daily Mirror were the shattered and torn park railings into which the car driven by a PIRA terrorist had rammed the young children. I was moved to write to the editor of said journal, but my correspondence was not deemed worthy enough of inclusion and it went into the waste-bin. I watched with interest the formation and rise of the Peace People but always felt with a sad air of inevitability, that it was doomed. A million words have been subsequently written about both the Maguire tragedy and the movement which it spawned. Perhaps the most sickening belong to the former Provisional IRA commander and now respected politician (author’s own italics), Mr Gerry Adams. He wrote:

  The facts of the incident were that Danny Lennon was shot dead at the wheel of the car he was driving by British soldiers firing from an armour-plated Land Rover and the car ploughed into the Maguire family. It was never clear whether they were killed by the car or by bullets fired by British soldiers.

  Adams’ words were so contemptible that only blinkered Republicans and that pathetic Irish-American terror fundraiser, NORAID, could possibly feel that they held a shred of truth.

  On the day that little John Maguire was dying from his injuries, PIRA gunmen engaged soldiers in a gun-battle in the Meehan Shopping Centre area of Londonderry. In the crossfire, Michael Quigley (31), father of four young children, was caught in the firing and mortally wounded. It is unclear which side fired the fatal bullet, with PIRA blaming the Army and vice-versa, but Mr Quigley died shortly afterwards in Altnagelvin Hospital; it was of little consequence to the four Quigley children whether or not the bullet which killed their father was a British Army round or a round from an American Armalite. The soldiers did not choose to turn Northern Ireland into a battleground and that was in evidence even more so, the following day.

  CROSSMAGLEN MORTAR ATTACK

  Gerry Evans, Royal Marines

  Crossmaglen, or as all who had served there referred to it as XMG, was also known as ‘bandit country.’ That I believe was a fair description; it had that air of anticipation that something was about to happen. Everybody who served there, prior to the deployment were always well briefed on previous incidents, mostly those where members of the SF had been KIA. It led to a little more anticipation, knowing that at this corner, this field, this hedgerow a major incident had occurred. Plus in our case James Borucki had been KIA a week or so prior to our main body arriving in the middle of August.

  Once 3 Para had departed, we settled into a routine and the guys just wanted to get out on the ground. The area itself, apart from the village was all rural fields and hedgerows and farm comple
xes. Due to the fact that once outside the village, there was no movement on the roads, everything was by foot. This made movement across that terrain physical and challenging, in particular what routes to take in trying to avoid the various and deadly IEDs. Avoiding them was, by that stage difficult, due to the units that had served in the area and PIRA being aware of the routes, it did indeed become a ‘cat and mouse’ game!

  I think it may be fair to say that the whole of the South Armagh area of operations (including Bessbrook Mill, Forkhill, Crossmaglen and Newtownhamilton) really had seen the birth of the remote-controlled IED (RCIED). It was used against the SF with devastating effect. PIRA were indeed cunning and devious in placing such devices, so much so it led to the decision to stop all movement on roads by foot or vehicle to all of these locations except Bessbrook Mill. All personnel, supplies, indeed everything, was brought in by Wessex or Puma.

  August and September passed with a few contacts, the most significant coming towards the end of August. It was a warm day and things appeared ‘normal’ in the village, when suddenly, the Base was mortared from literally across the road from the front gate. PIRA had set up a mortar base plate behind the local convenience store. The devices had been set up behind a high wall which obscured them from the front sangar. PIRA set them off remotely, but fortunately, they did little damage other than have us running around taking cover. Most of them were dud and it could well have been the anti-mortar netting that stopped them detonating.

  After that attack and moving into October, the weather and conditions on the ground began to change. It was moving towards winter, getting darker much earlier and on the evening I am going to describe was much like that. It had been a busy day in the village with a search being made of various buildings. The Square had been really swarming with SF all day. On completion, everyone had withdrawn back to the base; it was dark and getting cold when the attack started with a number of massive bangs. What the PIRA had done was to wait till all the SF were back in the base, and then brought a mortar lorry into the Square. Then as soon as the mortars were launched, they withdrew as the projectiles went over the roofs of nearby houses.

  The mortars had a devastating effect on the base, with all of the buildings outside the RUC Station being wooden structures. I personally was inside the Int room next to the Ops room. I was briefing a sergeant in regards to a patrol the following morning, and we dived under some tables until it all became quiet. Next door to our office was a small annex to the Ops room, where several of the staff were talking to an HQNI visitor. The visitor had been struck in the arm by shrapnel and seriously wounded and he was taken away with the other injured. The front sangar was manned by a marine – ‘Scouse’ Marshall – who stood his ground during the actual mortaring and we could hear him firing the GPMG into the Square. It was a real morale-booster for us, and he could see the mortars coming over the roofs of the houses and did not take cover!

  We quickly sent out patrols to find the mortar base. The damage was severe, but the CQMS, although wounded in the leg, was rallying around and trying to get things under control; for his sterling efforts he was awarded a Bar to his BEM which had only just been presented to him a few days before. It was still in its box inside the store which had just been flattened! He was casevaced the following day. Once all was secure, we got all the wounded moved by helicopter to hospital. However, because of the rain and the dark, getting the casualties out to the back LZ into the Pumas and Wessex took herculean efforts; it was a miracle that there were no fatalities. A total of 15 were wounded and sadly the Signals chap lost an arm.

  About two miles away, in some fields near the Cullaville Road, one of our patrols heard the bangs and saw the flashes. Under the command of Sergeant Mann, they raced back to the base on the roads, as it was deemed safe to do so. As they did so, they stumbled upon a freshly-painted sign put there by PIRA to warn the locals. It read: ‘Stop. IRA attack in progress.’ Picking up the sign they continued their ‘double’ back to the village. On arriving back at the base, the patrol found all their living accommodation flattened by the mortars!

  Those smells of XMG and the cuds never leave you; I will always remember Marines trying to carry the wounded out the rain, sliding all over the place in the mud, carrying the wounded to the helicopters. All the wounded eventually returned to duty. But that anticipation always hung in the air.

  An under vehicle booby-trap (UVBT) was placed under the car of Mr Lawrence Chambers, a 23 year-old from Craigavon, Co Armagh. The device exploded as he started the vehicle outside his home in Rathmore and he was dreadfully injured. He survived the attack but responsibility was never claimed.

  Two days after the Maguire tragedy, yet another child in Northern Ireland was killed as a consequence of the Troubles. The author is prepared to admit that a soldier in the Parachute Regiment was probably negligent but that the irresponsibility of PIRA in yet again turning urban areas into battlefields was a contributory factor in the loss of the O’Hare child in Whitecross, Co Armagh.

  Whitecross is a small town which sits on the ‘base’ of the ‘murder triangle’ a part of south-west Ulster in which over 100 sectarian killings took place during the Troubles and where even today, murders are not uncommon. Situated some 10 miles from the Irish border, it was a strategic spot for the Security Forces and it was the site of the appalling murders of the Reavey Brothers and the O’Dowd family in January 1976. In August of the same year, the Parachute Regiment was coming towards the end of their tour of that section of South Armagh and it was generally felt that they had done a good job and, if not exactly winning hearts and minds, at least had been diplomatic with few grounds for complaint with their conduct. That was all to change in a split second on an August day.

  PIRA gunmen opened fire on a Para foot patrol and their shots were returned; although it was by no means a full-scale firefight, plenty of rounds were pinging around. Tragically, a group of young Catholic school friends were walking in the area towards the local church when a stray round fired by a soldier hit one of them in the side causing her mortal injuries. Majella O’Hare (12) fell, dying around 50 yards from the church and this was witnessed by her distraught and shocked father who dashed to be at her side. Initially treated badly by a soldier who was in all likelihood equally shocked and on edge, he was allowed to comfort her. An Army helicopter was immediately summoned and within minutes the dying child and her father were en-route; tragically, she died shortly after take-off. Nationalists present a different story and state that the soldier fired blindly and it was his negligence which caused her death. The 24 year-old Para was charged with the killing but was released into the custody of the Army. The case was later dismissed.

  This author was critical of the Regiment and made his feelings clear in his piece on ‘Bloody Sunday’ in The Bloodiest Year: Northern Ireland, 1972 (The History Press, 2011). On that day, one feels that the Regiment’s officers lost control of their men and they were perhaps the wrong regiment in the wrong place at the wrong time. However, this author equally knows that they are professional and well-trained and as such, accepts that the little girl was the victim of a tragic accident. Moreover, it was the Provisionals decision to turn that part of Whitecross into a battlefield on that day in the full knowledge of the presence of children. Further, I would like to extend my heartfelt condolences to the O’Hare family.

  On that day of sadness, Loyalists attempted two more sectarian killings in Belfast. In one incident, Loyalist gunmen fired several shots at a young Catholic boy as he answered his door to them and in St James Road, Loyalist gunmen shot two men and wounded them both. At Springfield Road RUC station, two soldiers manning the front sangar spotted two men aiming rifles at them and under the ‘yellow card’ ROE were entitled to open fire. They fired two shots and stated that they hit one of the gunmen. Moments later, a total of nine rounds were fired at the RUC station on the Shankill Road, but no injuries were reported. PIRA used the ‘proxy’ car bomb also this day, when they forced a local Pro
testant to drive his car, packed with explosives to Newtownhamilton RUC station. The man was stopped on the M1 to Dublin and two milk churns containing 200lbs of explosives were placed in his car. The man drove to the RUC station but was stopped at a checkpoint. The detonator went off but the explosives failed to detonate and an Army EOD unit defused the bombs.

  The following day, 15th, there was an attempted bombing of Renaghan’s Bar in Clontibret, Co Monaghan by the UVF. The plan was aborted because the town had been sealed off by the Gardaí and Irish Army, both having received an earlier warning by RUC authorities in Northern Ireland that a bomb attack was expected. The UVF immediately suspected that they had an RUC informer in the ranks and this led to a period of investigation and witch hunts within the organisation.

  Not to be deterred, they attacked the Step In Bar at Keady, Co Armagh just 24 hours after the abortive raid on Renaghan’s. A massive 225lbs device was planted in a stolen van and the vehicle left against the pub wall; the gang raced off in the direction of Portadown. What was interesting – in a tragic sense – was the direction of the blast. Although it killed one person – Betty McDonald (32) mother of three – and injured nearly half a dozen inside the pub, it caused devastation outside and a local plumber Gerald McGleenan (22) who was standing outside his house, several doors away was killed instantly. Had the blast been directed at or into the pub, the carnage would have been almost unimaginable.

  On that same day, a Canadian tourist was rescued by a police officer after a bomb was placed in the HQNI town of Lisburn. The quick-thinking officer pulled the visitor from the North American continent out of the hotel and the device exploded some minutes later. Shortly afterwards, a Loyalist murder gang cruising along the falls Road in a car stolen on the Shankill opened fire on three Catholic men. All three were hit, but fortunately only slightly wounded as the UVF or UFF failed to add to the toll of sectarian slain.