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Kingsmill massacre

Coordinates: 54°13′43″N 6°26′04″W / 54.2286°N 6.4344°W / 54.2286; -6.4344
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54°13′43″N 6°26′04″W / 54.2286°N 6.4344°W / 54.2286; -6.4344

Kingsmill massacre
Part of The Troubles
LocationKingsmill, County Armagh
Northern Ireland
Date5 January 1976
Attack type
Shooting
Deaths10
Injured1
Perpetratormembers of the Provisional IRA using the covername "South Armagh Republican Action Force"

The Kingsmill massacre took place on 5 January 1976 near the village of Kingsmill in south County Armagh, Northern Ireland. Ten Protestant men were taken from a minibus and shot dead by a group calling itself the South Armagh Republican Action Force.[1] The group claimed that the attack was in revenge for the killing of six Catholics the night before.[2][3]

A Historical Enquiries Team investigation into the incident found that members of the Provisional IRA had carried out the attack despite the organization being on ceasefire. It also found that the victims were targeted simply because of their religion.[4][5][6] The report said that the attack had been pre-planned planned some time in advance[7] and the weapons used in another 110 murders or attempted murders.[8]

Background

The Kingsmill massacre was one of the worst incidents in a period of severe sectarian violence during "the Troubles", in Northern Ireland in general and in southern County Armagh in particular. The Provisional IRA —although officially on ceasefire from February 1975 to January 1976[9]—killed 326 people, 90 of whom were Protestant civilians.[10][11] In 1974-76, the Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF) killed 250 people, mostly Catholic civilians.[12]

Between 1 August 1975 and 4 January 1976, loyalist paramilitaries killed 17 Catholic civilians in County Armagh and County Louth.[13][14] In that same period, republican paramilitaries killed 10 Protestant civilians in County Armagh and nine soldiers.

  • On 1 September, five Protestant civilians were killed by masked gunmen at Tullyvallan Orange Hall near Newtownhamilton. The attack was claimed by a group calling itself the "South Armagh Republican Action Force".[13] This was the first time the name had been used.
  • On 19 December, loyalists detonated a car bomb at Kay's Tavern in Dundalk, a few miles across the Irish border. No warning was given beforehand and two civilians were killed.[13] Later that day, three Catholic civilians were killed and six were wounded in a gun and grenade attack on Silverbridge Inn near Crossmaglen. The same group, "Red Hand Commandos", claimed responsibility for both attacks.[13] It was later claimed that members of the RUC and Ulster Defence Regiment (UDR) had been part of the loyalist gang.[15]
  • On 31 December, three Protestant civilians were killed in an explosion at Central Bar, Gilford. The "People's Republican Army" claimed responsibility.[13] It is believed this was a covername used by members of the Irish National Liberation Army (INLA).[16]
  • Four days later, on 4 January 1976, the UVF shot dead six Catholic civilians in two co-ordinated attacks. They killed three members of the Reavey family in Whitecross and three members of the O'Dowd family in Ballydougan, within twenty minutes of each-other. One RUC officer was involved and it has been claimed that a UDR member also took part. It has been claimed that this was revenge for the bombing in Gilford.[17][18]

The 2011 inquiry into the Kingsmill attack found that while it was in “direct response” to the Reavey and O'Dowd killings, the attack was pre-planned. “The murderous attacks on the Reavey and O’Dowd families were simply the catalyst for the premeditated and calculated slaughter of these innocent and defenceless men".[19]

The attack

On 5 January 1976, a Ford Transit minibus was carrying sixteen textile workers home from work in Glenanne to Bessbrook. Five were Catholics and eleven were Protestants. Four of the Catholics got out at Whitecross, while the remainder continued on the road to Bessbrook.[20] As the bus cleared the rise of a hill, it was stopped by a man standing on the road and flashing a torch. As it stopped, eleven masked gunmen emerged from the hedges and a man "with a pronounced English accent" began talking.[21] At first, the workers assumed that they were being stopped and searched by a British Army or RUC checkpoint, and when ordered to line up beside the bus, they obeyed. At this point the lead gunman ordered the only Catholic, Richard Hughes, to step forward. Hughes' workmates—thinking that the armed men were loyalists who had come to kill him—tried to stop him from identifying himself.[21] However, when Hughes stepped forward the gunman told him to "Get down the road and don't look back".[22]

The remaining eleven men were shot with AR-18 and L1A1 SLR rifles, a 9mm pistol, and an M1 carbine. A total of 136 rounds were fired in less than a minute. Ten of them were killed outright and one, Alan Black, survived despite having eighteen gunshot wounds.

Hughes managed to stop a car and hitched a lift to Bessbrook RUC station, where he raised the alarm. Meanwhile, a man and his wife had come upon the scene of the killings and had begun praying beside the victims. They found Alan Black, who was lying in a ditch and badly wounded. When an ambulance arrived, Black was taken to hospital in Newry, where he was operated on and survived.[23] A police officer said that the road was "an indescribable scene of carnage".[24]

Nine of the dead, the textile workers, were from the village of Bessbrook, while the bus driver was from nearby Mountnorris.[2] Four of the men were members of the Orange Order.[25]

The dead[26]

  • Robert Bryans (46 years old)
  • Robert Chambers (19)
  • Walter Chapman (23)
  • Reginald Chapman (25)
  • Robert Freeburn (50)
  • Joseph Lemon (46)
  • John McConville (20)
  • James McWhirter (58)
  • Robert Walker (46)
  • Kenneth Wharton (24)

The perpetrators

The next day, a caller claimed responsibility for the attack on behalf of the South Armagh Republican Action Force. He said that it was retaliation for the Reavey and O’Dowd killings of the night before,[21][27] and that there would be "no further action on our part" if loyalists stopped their attacks. He added that the group had no connection with the IRA.[21]

A 2011 report by the Historical Inquiries Team found that the Provisional IRA was responsible for the killings.[28][29] The inquiry team dismissed the claim at the time that the murders were the work of the South Armagh Republican Action Force. It said such was the widespread revulsion that the IRA attempted to distance itself from the attack by using this cover-name. It added: “There is some intelligence that the Provisional IRA unit responsible was not well-disposed towards central co-ordination but there is no excuse in that. These dreadful murders were carried out by the Provisional IRA and none other.[30]

According to the account of journalist Toby Harnden, the British military intelligence assessment at the time was that the attack was carried out by local IRA members "who were acting outside of the normal IRA command structure".[31] He also quoted an alleged South Armagh IRA member, Volunteer M, who said that "IRA members were ordered by their leaders to carry out the Kingsmill massacre".[32] Furthermore, Harnden reported a contradictory RUC allegation that the attack was planned, and that future Real IRA leader Michael McKevitt was among the IRA members who planned it (at the nearby Road House pub on New Year's Eve) and took part.[33]

It was alleged by Harnden that IRA Chief of Staff Seamus Twomey, on the suggestion of Brian Keenan, ordered that there had to be a disproportionate retaliation against Protestants in order to stop Catholics being killed by loyalists. According to IRA informer Sean O'Callaghan, "Keenan believed that the only way to put the nonsense out of the Prods [Protestants], was to hit back much harder and more savagely than them".[34] However, O'Callaghan reports that Twomey and Keenan did not consult the IRA Army Council before sanctioning the Kingsmill attack. This version of events is disputed by republican leader Ruairí Ó Brádaigh, who claims that he and Twomey only learned of the Kingsmill attack after it had taken place.[35]

The IRA at the time denied responsibility for the killings. It stated on 17 January 1976:

The Irish Republican Army has never initiated sectarian killings... [but] if loyalist elements responsible for over 300 sectarian assassinations in the past four years stop such killing now, then the question of retaliation from whatever source does not arise.[36]

Two AR-18 rifles used in the shooting were found by the British Army in 1990 in a wall near Cullyhanna and forensically tested. It was reported that the rifles were linked to 17 killings in the South Armagh area from 1974 to 1990. [37] Further ballistic studies found that guns used in the attack were linked to 37 murders, 22 attempted murders, 19 non-fatal shootings and 11 finds of spent cartridges between 1974 and 1989.[38]

In 1999 Ian Paisley, quoting what he said was an RUC dossier, claimed that one of the Reavey brothers (who were killed by the UVF the day before) participated in the Kingsmill attack (see below).

Reactions and aftermath

The Kingsmill massacre was the last in the series of sectarian killings in South Armagh during the mid-1970s. According to local unionist activist Willie Frazer of Families Acting for Innocent Relatives (FAIR), this was as a result of deal between the local UVF and IRA groups.[39]

Two days after the massacre, Prime Minister Harold Wilson announced that the Special Air Service (SAS) was being moved into the South Armagh area. This was the first time that SAS presence in Northern Ireland was officially acknowledged.[40] However, according to historian Richard English, "It seems clear that the SAS had been in the north well before this. According to the Provisionals since 1971; according to a former SAS soldier they had been there even earlier". Units and personnel under SAS control are alleged to have been involved in loyalist attacks.[41]

Loyalist response

There were no immediate revenge attacks by loyalist paramilitaries. However, in 2007 it emerged that local UVF members (the so-called "Glenanne gang") had planned to kill at least thirty Catholic school children as retaliation.[42][43] This gang had been involved in the Reavey–O'Dowd killings and it included members of the RUC's Special Patrol Group and the British Army's Ulster Defence Regiment.[42][43] Following the Kingsmill shootings, the gang drew up plans to attack St Lawrence O'Toole Primary School in the South Armagh village of Belleeks.[42][43] The plan was aborted at the last minute on orders of the UVF leadership, who ruled that it would be "morally unacceptable", would undermine support for the UVF, and could lead to civil war.[42][43] One member of the Glenanne gang said that the UVF leadership also feared the potential IRA response.[44] It was claimed the leadership suspected that the member who suggested the attack was working for British military intelligence,[42][43] and that military intelligence were seeking to provoke a civil war.[44]

Another UVF gang, the "Shankill Butchers", also planned retaliation for the massacre. This gang operated in Belfast and was notorious for its late-night kidnapping, torture and murder (by throat slashing) of random Catholic civilians. Within a week of the massacre, it had laid the groundwork for an attack on a lorry that ferried Catholic workmen to Corry's Timber Yard in West Belfast. The plan was to shoot all of those on board. However, the plan was abandoned after the workers changed their route and transport.[45]

Some loyalist paramilitaries claim the Kingsmill massacre is the reason they joined paramilitary groups. One was Billy Wright, who said:

I was 15 when those workmen were pulled out of that bus and shot dead. I was a Protestant and I realised that they had been killed simply because they were Protestants. I left Mountnorris, came back to Portadown and immediately joined the youth wing of the UVF.

[46] He went on to lead a UVF unit in North Armagh and then to found the Loyalist Volunteer Force. Wright was suspected of at least 20 sectarian killings of Catholics in the 1980s and 1990s.[47] Another with similar claims was RUC Special Patrol Group officer Billy McCaughey, who was one of the RUC officers present at the aftermath of the massacre. He told Toby Harnden, "the sides of the road were running red with blood and it was the blood of totally innocent Protestants". Afterwards, McCaughey says that he began passing RUC intelligence to the UVF and Ulster Defence Association (UDA) and also to participate in their operations. McCaughey was convicted in 1980 of one sectarian killing, the kidnapping of a Catholic priest, and one failed bombing.[48] However, McCaughey had colluded with loyalists before the Kingsmill attack, and later admitted to taking part in the Reavey killings the day before – he claimed he "was at the house but fired no shots".[49] McCaughey also gave his view on how the massacre affected loyalists:

I think Kingsmills forced people to ask themselves where they were going, especially the Protestant support base, the civilian support base – the people who were not members of the UVF but would let you use a building or a field. Those people, many of them withdrew. It wasn't because of anything the UVF did. It was fear of retaliation.[21]

No one was ever charged in relation to the Kingsmill massacre. In August 2003, there were calls for the Police Service of Northern Ireland to reopen the files relating to the massacre.[50]

Republican response

The reactions of Irish republicans at the time was mixed. It was allegedly ordered by elements of the IRA leadership (Seamus Twomey and Brian Keenan), but others, such as Gerry Adams, were reported to be very unhappy about it. According to Sean O'Callaghan, Adams said in an Army Council meeting, "there'll never again be another Kingsmills".[51]

IRA members in South Armagh, who talked to journalist and author Toby Harnden in the late 1990s, generally condemned the massacre. One of them, Volunteer M, said it was "a gut reaction [to the killing of Catholics] and a wrong one. The worst time in my life was in jail after Kingsmill. It was a dishonourable time". Another, Volunteer G, said that he "never agreed with Kingsmills". Republican activist Peter John Caraher said that those ultimately responsible were "the loyalists who shot the Reavey brothers". He added, "It was sad that those people [at Kingsmills] had to die, but I'll tell you something, it stopped any more Catholics being killed".[52] This view was reiterated by a County Tyrone republican and Gaelic Athletic Association veteran who spoke to Ed Moloney. "It's a lesson you learn quickly on the football field... If you're fouled, you hit back", he said.[53]

Ian Paisley and Eugene Reavey

In 1999, Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) leader Ian Paisley stated in the House of Commons that Eugene Reavey took part in the massacre. Eugene Reavey's three brothers were killed by loyalists the day before, although Paisley made no reference to those killings.[54]

Eugene Reavey had "witnessed the immediate aftermath of the [Kingsmill] massacre, which took place near his home. He was driving to Newry and happened upon it. He and his family were on their way to Daisy Hill hospital to collect the bodies of two of his brothers, John (24) and Brian (22)."[55] Eugene Reavey "was also going to visit his younger brother, Anthony, who had been badly injured in the attack. The bodies of the murdered workmen were being brought into the mortuary when he arrived. He went into the room where the shattered families were gathering, and wept with them. Alan Black [sole survivor of the Kingsmill massacre] and Anthony Reavey shared a hospital room. Black lived. Reavey died."[56]

Paisley used parliamentary privilege to name those he believed responsible, including Eugene Reavey, whom he accused of being "a well-known republican" who "set up the Kingsmills massacre". Paisley claimed to be quoting from a "police dossier".[57] Paisley's claims were rejected by the sole survivor of the Kingsmill massacre, Alan Black, and also by Reavey himself.

Susan McKay wrote in the Irish Times that Alan Black, on hearing Paisley's accusations,

...went straight to the Reaveys' house in Whitecross, south Armagh. He told Reavey that he knew he was innocent. The PSNI has stated that it had no reason to suspect Reavey of any crime, let alone of masterminding the atrocity ... The then Northern Ireland deputy first minister, the SDLP's Seamus Mallon, expressed outrage. Reavey went to the chief constable of the RUC, Ronnie Flanagan. Flanagan said he had "absolutely no evidence whatsoever" to connect him with the massacre, and that no police file contained any such allegation.[58]

In January 2007, the Police Service of Northern Ireland's Historical Enquiries Team apologised to the Reavey family for allegations that the three brothers killed in 1976 were IRA members or that Eugene Reavey had been involved in the Kingsmill attack.[59] Despite this, the allegation continued to be promoted by Willie Frazer of FAIR.[60] Reavey is currently taking a related case to the European Court of Human Rights.[61]

In May 2010, the Historical Enquiries Team released a report into the loyalist murders of three Reavey brothers, which exonerated them and their family of any links to paramilitarism. Eugene Reavey says he now wants an apology from Ian Paisley for the comments he made in 1999.[62]

See also

References

  1. ^ 1976: Ten dead in Northern Ireland ambush.
  2. ^ a b "BBC". BBC News. 1976-01-05. Retrieved 2010-01-05.
  3. ^ "UTV News - Paisley under pressure over Reavey apology". U.tv. 2010-06-30. Retrieved 2010-07-21.
  4. ^ "BBC - 'Kingsmills families demand full inquiry into massacre'". BBC. 2011-06-22. Retrieved 2011-06-17.
  5. ^ "Newsletter - Kingsmills Guns 'used 110 times'". Newsletter. 2011-06-16. Retrieved 2011-06-17.
  6. ^ "Newsletter - Kingsmills was "sectarian savagery"". Newsletter. 2011-06-17. Retrieved 2011-06-17.
  7. ^ "Newsletter - Kingsmills was "sectarian savagery"". Newsletter. 2011-06-17. Retrieved 2011-06-17.
  8. ^ "Probe points to police failures in the wake of IRA massacre at Kingsmills". Belfast Telegraph. 2011-06-17. Retrieved 2011-08-19.
  9. ^ CAIN: Events: IRA Truce - 9 Feb 1975 to 23 Jan 1976 - A Chronology of Main Events
  10. ^ CAIN: Sutton Index of Deaths - crosstabulation year by organisation
  11. ^ CAIN: Sutton Index of Deaths - extracts from Sutton's book
  12. ^ Richard English, Armed Struggle, a History of the IRA, p 173
  13. ^ a b c d e f CAIN - Sutton Index of Deaths - 1975
  14. ^ CAIN - Sutton Index of Deaths - 1976
  15. ^ CAIN - Chronology of the Conflict - December 1975
  16. ^ CAIN - Acronyms - INLA
  17. ^ Irish News, cited in David McKittrick, Seamus Kelters, Brian Feeney and Chris Thornton (1999), Lost Lives. Edinburgh: Mainstream Publishing, p.609
  18. ^ David McKittrick, Seamus Kelters, Brian Feeney and Chris Thornton (1999), Lost Lives. Edinburgh: Mainstream Publishing, p.606
  19. ^ http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/ireland/2011/0622/1224299384987.html
  20. ^ Harnden, p. 134
  21. ^ a b c d e "Blood in the Rain". The Belfast Telegraph. 5 January 2006. Retrieved 19 August 2010. {{cite web}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |1= (help)
  22. ^ Harnden, p. 135
  23. ^ Harnden p. 135
  24. ^ McKittrick et al, p. 611
  25. ^ "In Memory" - Armagh County Grand Orange Lodge website.
  26. ^ http://cain.ulst.ac.uk/cgi-bin/AHRC/mem_deaths.pl?id=1294
  27. ^ Interim Report of the Independent Commission of Inquiry into the Bombing of Kay’s Tavern, Dundalk, p. 9.
  28. ^ "BBC - IRA 'responsible for Kingsmills'". BBC. 2011-06-16. Retrieved 2011-06-17.
  29. ^ "Newsletter - Kingsmills was "sectarian savagery"". Newsletter. 2011-06-17. Retrieved 2011-06-17.
  30. ^ http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/ireland/2011/0622/1224299384987.html
  31. ^ Harnden, PB, Coronet Books, 2000 p. 187
  32. ^ Harnden p. 137
  33. ^ Harnden p 136
  34. ^ Harnden, p134
  35. ^ Robert W. White, Ruairi O Bradaigh, the life and politics of an Irish Revolutionary, p. 386
  36. ^ Richard English, Armed Struggle, a History of the IRA p. 173
  37. ^ Harnden, Bandit County (1999) p136
  38. ^ [1]
  39. ^ Harnden, p. 140
  40. ^ CAIN - Chronology of the Conflict - January 1976
  41. ^ English, p. 172
  42. ^ a b c d e "UVF gang planned to kill 30 children". The Irish News. 9 July 2007. Retrieved 17 August 2010.
  43. ^ a b c d e "UVF planned Catholic school massacre". An Phoblacht. 12 July 2007. Retrieved 17 August 2010.
  44. ^ a b "Statement from the families of those murdered at Donnelly’s Bar, Silverbridge, outside Kay’s Tavern, Dundalk and in the Reavey and O’Dowd homes" (09 July 2007) - Pat Finucane Centre
  45. ^ Dillon, Martin (1999). The Shankill Butchers: The Real Story of Cold-Blooded Mass Murder. Routledge. p. 101.
  46. ^ Toby Harnden, Bandit Country, the IRA and South Armagh, p. 140
  47. ^ Cowan, Rosie (2000-12-27). "Ceaseless quest of King Rat's father". The Guardian. London. Retrieved 2010-05-07.
  48. ^ Harnden, p. 138-140, incl. both previous quotes
  49. ^ Interim Report of the Independent Commission of Inquiry into the Bombing of Kay’s Tavern, Dundalk July, 2006, p. 122.
  50. ^ Police 'to reopen murder files' BBC website
  51. ^ Harnden, Bandit Country p. 134, but see also Robert W. White, p. 386, above.
  52. ^ Harnden p. 137-138, see also CAIN webservice.
  53. ^ A Secret History of the IRA, Ed Moloney, 2002. (9PB) ISBN 0-393-32502-4, (HB) ISBN 0-71-399665-X, p. 320
  54. ^ See Paisley reference below
  55. ^ Bitter hatreds that underpin Love Ulster parade in Dublin, Susan McKay, Irish Times, Feb 25th 2005.
  56. ^ ibid
  57. ^ House of Commons Hansard Debates for 27 Jan 1999 (pt 32) Commons Hansard. 27 January 1999.
  58. ^ Irish Times, 25 February 2006.
  59. ^ http://breaking.examiner.ie/ireland/?jp=CWSNMHQLQLID
  60. ^ Sectarianism and hatred only winners in city riot, by Susan McKay, The Irish News, 28 February 2006; see also: Paisley called on to apologise to murdered brother's family, by Alison Morris, Irish News, 18 January 2007; see also, Disgusting justification for sectarian murders, by Susan McKay, Irish News January 30 2007
  61. ^ ibid.
  62. ^ UTV 19 May 2010.

External links

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