Torn Apart

by Ken Wharton

  Mr McCrory later helped to carry the coffin of the second-youngest victim, 13-year-old Leanne Murray: ‘I later discovered that as I was bringing her down Silvio Street, Gerry Adams was carrying the coffin of the bomber Thomas Begley in the Ardoyne. That was very upsetting.’

  Ivan Little’s 2016 article continued:

  Marty Marchant reflects on the painful memories of the nightmarish hours on the Shankill after the blast and the funerals of three members of the Baird family in the week following the appalling atrocity. He says: ‘I would defy anyone – even members of Sinn Féin – not to cry if they could see pictures of those coffins coming over the brow of the hill at Glencairn that day.’

  For Marty Marchant it had been a Saturday that kicked off with the usual tingle of excitement as he readied himself to go to watch his favourite football team, Linfield. As he waited for a lift on the Shankill not far from Frizzell’s shop, he heard the unmistakable sound of an explosion. ‘The whole place was black with dust rising and falling. I ran down and one of the first things I saw was a pram sticking out of the rubble. We immediately started to dig among the wreckage, but we didn’t know what we were doing. We got a chain going to pass bricks and stuff out of the shop. Tiles, bricks and pieces of wood were falling down from what remained of the building, but nobody cared. There were girls trapped in a hair salon above the shop next door, but we didn’t know whether to get them out first or help people on the ground until the emergency services arrived. I remember one body was stuck to tiles with hard blood and there were bricks with flesh on them which the ambulance men were telling us to keep. They were also bringing out limbs in plastic bags. I will never forget any of it.’

  John Foster was buying wallpaper in the adjoining decorating shop. He told a journalist that he felt a dull thud, before building debris began piling up around and on top of him. He explained how he was pulled from the rubble, feeling tremendous pain, but refused offers of assistance to the ambulance as he wished to help the others, despite his own pain. He said:

  I saw all the people pulling at the rubble, and I knew that there had to be people trapped so, when the ambulance came for me, I said get the worst people first, the ones who had lost their limbs. They started bringing the stretchers in and the dead out and again I said that I wouldn’t go to the hospital because I knew there had to people worse than me. Then the pain got so bad that I cried for help. Every time I see it on the news, every time I think about it, I hear the mortar falling. I don’t know how I was saved. I’m a living miracle.

  In researching for this book through newspaper archives I was immediately reminded of stories passed on to me by relatives who remembered the Blitz, as the German Luftwaffe bombed British cities during 1940/41. I was told of tense moments, digging through the rubble of a bombed-out building, the clatter of damaged bricks against damaged bricks, smashed kitchen equipment, the harsh scraping of shovels against concrete, and then the calls for silence. The whispered shhhs; the straining of every single pair of ears, straining to hear sounds of cries, or scraping from underneath their feet. The shouts of triumph as someone was dragged out still alive, and the sobs and disappointment when a body was pulled out, with all life extinguished. One can only imagine that those people on the Shankill Road must have felt the very same emotions.

  At Begley’s funeral, Gerry Adams provoked outrage by carrying his coffin and then, in an act of gross insensitivity, provoked further anger in praising the bomber as ‘... a volunteer who made the ultimate sacrifice for his belief ...’ The Provisionals still insisted that they had been trying to kill the top men in the UFF’s ‘C’ Company, Adair, McKeag and others, whom they believed were meeting on the floor above Frizzell’s. They have always maintained that they had no intention of killing or hurting Protestant civilians. Copeland, Begley and the others who planned and executed the bungled bombing were aware, through their dickers’ reports along with their own recces on the Shankill, that on a Saturday lunchtime the area would be heaving with shoppers. Even had the eleven-second fuse worked, the blast would have caught those too slow or shocked to exit the shop after a shouted warning, especially John Frizzell and his daughter, Sharon McBride, who were trapped behind the serving counter and would have stood no chance of escape. Moreover, there were also scores of shoppers innocently walking past, who would have had little chance to avoid the blast, especially as a dozen or more people were simultaneously scrambling to get out of the narrow door in mortal fear of their lives.

  If Adams and McGuinness were involved in sanctioning this operation, they could hardly have failed to not consider the Loyalist reaction; they knew that they would exact a bloody revenge – which they did – and that even more innocent Catholic blood would be spilled.

  In 2013, as part of what the author refers, or rather referred, to as the Adams–McGuinness–Morrison axis was in action again as they continued in their efforts to rewrite the history of the Troubles. As part of what can only be described as a ‘campaign of insensitivity’, they unveiled a plaque paying tribute to Begley, one of the men responsible for the death and misery at Frizzell’s. The plaque placed at the entrance to the Ardoyne on Crumlin Road reads: ‘Belfast Brigade: Oglach Thomas “Bootsey” Begley: Died on Active service 23rd October 1993: Always remembered by his many comrades and friends.’ Among those present was his fellow bomber, Kelly, who was pictured embracing Begley’s father. In absolute fairness to the father of the bomber, Mr Begley Senior said, ‘As you well know, this is not a celebration or a glorification of that tragic day that happened. It’s also [not to] degrade the innocent people on the Shankill Road.’ Protestants were rightly outraged by this display of crass insensitivity, although one trusts that Mr Begley Senior’s words found a sympathetic audience, somewhere. A large Loyalist protest took place before the event, with considerable anger being shown in the Crumlin Road. Michelle Williamson, orphaned in the blast, sent a letter to Begley’s parents, stating that she had no problem in acknowledging their loss, but said the unveiling of the plaque to a bomber was ‘... a sick and cruel insult to the memory of our loved ones’.

  President of Sinn Féin Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness at the funeral of Patrick Kelly who was killed in Loughgall in 1987.

  In addition to carrying the tricolour-draped coffin of Begley, Gerry Adams told Spiegel Online in April 2018: ‘The IRA had a great deal of popular support when it was in its ascendancy and its capacity to conduct a war against the British.’ Although Adams denied that he had ever shot at people, he went on: ‘It’s still my view that the use of armed actions in the given circumstances is a legitimate response.’ In 2018, he was attacked in the Dáil Éireann (Irish Parliament) by fellow TD (Teachta Dála) Patrick O’Donovan; the angry Limerick member said, ‘Deputy Adams has said he was never a member of what was responsible for 6 Gardaí being put in early graves.’ He continued:

  When you are on your high moral ground tonight, and I know your younger members are shifting in their seats, when they think of what you’ve led them to. When you get back on your high moral ground tonight, Deputy Adams – and there are some of your commandants still knocking around as well – you might take the opportunity to reflect in the stillness of the night, when the light goes off to remember the faces of those dead Gards whose graves you put them in with your organisation, earlier than their time. Your organisation ... the organisation that Deputy Adams says he never was a member of, is responsible for 6 Gards in this State being put in early graves, and when ye are on your high moral ground tonight, especially the younger Deputies of Sinn Féin: ask yourselves about Kangaroo Courts, about dumping vans on the border where people are brought, to be brought before the so-called Kangaroo Court; ask yourself about the whistle-blower who was Maria Cahill, a brave woman ... who you vilified. Ask yourselves about Paudie McGahon; and we all know what was done to him. Ask yourselves about the memory of the late Brian Stack, whose family have begged you, begged you for answers as to what happened to their father, and you won’t come forward w
ith what you know, because you say there is a journey to truth and reconciliation. And, you’re right; let this journey begin here tonight.

  Martin Meehan (centre) with Gerry Adams at a funeral in Belfast in 1971 of a Belfast IRA commander.

  Another TD, Timmy Dooley, directly addressing Adams, said, ‘We know how you treated whistle-blowers; whistle-blowers did not get an opportunity to have an investigation appropriately heard. In Sinn Féin, they usually ended up on a lonely road with their hands tied behind their back, with a bullet through their head, and you well know that!’

  FRIZZELL POSTSCRIPT AND CONTROVERSY

  The Troubles was a time of violence and of controversy; it was a dirty war and must rank among the dirtiest wars of all. An RUC source, very close to the author, advanced several theories as to why the Frizzell’s bomb exploded so prematurely and so disastrously. As he pointed out, this was the twenty-fourth year of the Troubles; the Provisionals’ bomb-makers had developed an expertise and a professionalism in the construction, transportation and detonation of all types of explosive devices. They had evolved from the early days of the 1970s when it appeared that they had an amateurish – and fatalistic – approach to bomb-making with many of their ‘experts’ removing themselves from the gene pool in a series of catastrophic, not to say careless, incidents, to the deadly professionals of the late 1980s and early ’90s. Early examples include the Short Strand unit setting the timing device on a bomb and then being turned around by an Army VCP, but not quite returning to their base before they all became a bloodied mist. Another fine example of this lemming-like amateurism was a bomb-maker in the Falls Road area mixing highly volatile powder with a spade on a stone yard floor. Too late, he discovered that sparks and explosives tend to react badly – very badly. Given this wealth of expertise and experience, how or why did the Frizzell’s bombing go so badly wrong?

  The first theory advanced to the author, and possibly the most feasible, concerned an allegation that Begley and Kelly were informers, either for the RUC’s Special Branch or British Army Intelligence. If this was the case, then the Belfast Brigade could kill several birds with one stone; they could – as they claim they intended – wipe out the top echelon of the UFF’s ‘C’ Company, including possibly Adair and McKeag, while also ridding themselves of two touts. It would have saved the use of their feared ‘nutting squad’ and they would have been spared the embarrassment of admitting that two of their top men were informants. Of course, if this was the case, Copeland and the rest of the PIRA commanders knew that their bomb wouldn’t just kill Adair and company but would also massacre many innocent Protestants.

  A second theory was the truly chilling prospect – but given the nature of the dirty war, not entirely beyond the realms of possibility – that British Intelligence or RUC Special Branch did have an informant or informers inside either Copeland’s unit or in the Short Strand unit where the device was assembled. The device may have been interfered with, in terms of deliberately sabotaging the detonator, thus ensuring an instantaneous explosion. Consequently, there would certainly be mass deaths as well as the discrediting of the Provisionals, along with their exposure as sectarian murderers – something that they have always denied. If this was the case, then innocent lives were sacrificed to ensure maximum discredit and the weakening of the Provisionals’ image on the island of Ireland, and particularly in the USA. The author finds this, while not entirely implausible, not an explanation with overmuch credibility.

  The final possibility is that, again, it was intended that the bomb would detonate the very second that Begley pressed the detonator; the intention was that people would die, with Begley and Kelly and the innocent shoppers being merely collateral damage. Some of the author’s contacts, allied to personal research and observation, suggest that the Provisionals were aware that they could not win what their tacticians had dubbed ‘the long war’, as defeating the British was no longer militarily possible. Successive British governments had played ‘the long game’, and had kept the Republican paramilitaries largely tied down, with only the occasional ‘spectacular’. This would naturally preclude the ‘bandit country’ of South Armagh and the marginally less dangerous border territory in Co. Fermanagh. If that was the case, there must have been a movement inside the Provisionals’ Army Council that wanted the war to end and would have been only too happy to allow the Belfast units to be severely discredited by the atrocity that would inevitably unfold at Frizzell’s. It would be another nail in the coffin of the Hawks who wished to continue the fight to drive the British into the sea. Of the three theories, one finds this the least plausible.

  The countdown to the Greysteel massacre had begun; it was a mere seven days away. However, before further blood and smashed glass could litter a pub dancefloor, there was yet more misery for the innocent people of Northern Ireland.

  Close to midnight on the 24th, another Troubles phenomenon – the repugnancy of ‘dial a Catholic’ – took the life of a restaurant delivery driver, Martin Moran (22). Mr Moran worked for a Chinese takeaway on the Dublin Road; just after 23.30 hours, he was handed a meal for delivery to Vernon Court, a known Nationalist area, for a woman with an obviously Catholic name. Unknown to him, the call was placed by a UFF member on behalf of several armed men who lay in wait close to the address she had been given. Mr Moran parked up and stepped out of the car, turning around to reach inside his vehicle for the meal; as he turned, a gunman stepped from the shadows, shooting him in the head and upper body. He was fatally wounded, dying the following day.

  The day after the attack, the UVF, now positively thirsting for revenge, turned their attention to Glengormley; a stolen car containing armed men stopped outside a house overlooking Belfast Lough. They kicked open the door, knocking Sean Fox (72), a one-eyed pensioner, to the ground. He was kicked almost senseless before being shot several times at very close range; he died almost instantly. One tactic the paramilitaries used, according to author Martin Dillon, was to fire at least one shot through their victim’s ear so that even in the unlikely event he or she survived, irreparable brain damage would ensure that they would be in no position to later give evidence.

  On the following morning, Adair, by now apparently aware that he had been the target of the Shankill bomb, felt that it was time to make his presence felt once more as the sectarian war was escalated, notch by notch. The target on the Tuesday morning was the council cleansing depot on Lower Kennedy Way in West Belfast. Located close to the Nationalist Andersonstown estate, it was known that the men working there would be Catholics only, thus negating the accidental shooting of any Protestants. Adair dispatched a murder gang allegedly including Gary ‘Smickers’ Smyth, Thomas Beggs and Robert ‘Rab’ Bradshaw (see ‘Mad Dog’ Lister & Jordan, pp.164–66) to drive to a house in Moltke Street, close to the city hospital. There they were entertained by 19-year-old Wendy Davies overnight, leaving her home at around 07.30 hours to make an attack on the depot.

  Wearing high-visibility jackets, they arrived at their location some fifteen minutes later. Seizing on an opened gate, they rushed in, firing indiscriminately as they did so, from automatic weapons. James Cameron (54), a father of three from Lenadoon, was the first to be hit as he stood by the gates. Seconds afterwards, Mark Rodgers (28), a father of two, also from Lenadoon, was hit in the chest, collapsing to the ground, mortally wounded. He was covered in leaking diesel after a nearby tanker had been hit several times by automatic fire. Five others were hit and fell wounded, at which point one of the gunman ran over to a bleeding victim and fired again, but his gun jammed; an eyewitness saw him stand with his foot on the back of the wounded man, holding him down as he feverishly and callously worked at clearing the weapon, but he was unable to fire at the man again. The men ran off to where Beggs was waiting, before racing off in the direction of Lisburn Road; there they abandoned the car, picking up another vehicle and driving back to the home of Wendy Davies.

  The Daily Express relegated the Lower Kennedy Way shooting to page 2. Ev
en on that inner page, the shooting of a mourner at Begley’s funeral took precedence over the deaths of the two Catholics, with the attack sub-headed: ‘“My daddy’s dead,” shouts boy after revenge attack on workmen.’ Even at this very late stage of the Troubles, with sickening precedent set after sickening precedent, it was incredibly naïve of the press to talk about ‘revenge’ attacks. Of course, Loyalist outrage was at a maximum following the terrible slaughter at Frizzell’s, but the Loyalist paramilitaries, like their Republican counterparts, simply did not need an excuse for blood-letting.

  The getaway driver, UFF member Thomas Edward Beggs, was found guilty at Belfast Crown Court in December 1994 of the murder of the two workmen and the attempted murder of five others. Lord Justice Kelly told Beggs: ‘You were the driver who drove the gunmen responsible, knowing full well their mission was to murder as many Catholic workmen as they could.’ Beggs was given concurrent life terms of 144 years, but he was released early under the GFA. Also jailed was Wendy Ann Davies, who received four years for conspiracy. She had allowed her home in Moltke Street to be used as part of the conspiracy to murder the workmen. In her defence it was said that she was ‘mentally retarded’ and the UFF gunmen used her to full advantage. Justice Kelly said of her: ‘It appears quite clear that she was a girl who was used and abused by people for their own ends – evil ends.’ In 2018, I drove along Lower Kennedy Way and parked outside the depot; it was smaller than I expected, fronted by dirty blue gates. It was nothing like I had imagined, but it was easy to picture the automatic gunfire, the screams of those hit, the sectarian curses of the murder gang and the combined stench of cordite and diesel. Easy? How can it ever be easy to imagine a scene straight out of hell?