The Shankill Butchers

by Martin Dillon

  Roland Cargill remembers ordering a second drink and walking from the bar to his table when four men burst into the downstairs bar:

  They came in in Indian file and were wearing balaclava helmets. The helmets were a yellow colour and looked as though they were made from a chamois-type material. I noticed almost immediately that the two men leading this group were carrying handguns. The first one said to everyone, ‘All right, Prods to one side and Catholics to the other.’ I rose from my seat until I was almost at eye level with this man and I said to him something like: ‘It’s not going to be this sort of carry on?’ He turned towards me and put his gun in my ribs and asked: ‘What are you?’ I said that I was a Prod and why should that matter. He then pulled the gun from my ribs and put it to my head. I assumed that I was going to be shot and I pulled my head back. He just fired the gun and shot me through the nose. I remember nothing else until I found myself lying between two other men on the floor and there were pools of blood everywhere.

  Robert Emerson and his brother John were chatting to customers at another table when Robert witnessed the masked men entering the bar. He remembers it in this way:

  One of the four men asked whether there were any Prods in the bar and I told him that I was one and he ushered me towards the bar counter. At the same time two male customers came out of the Gents’. When they saw the gunmen, they tried to go back into the toilet but the gunman warned them not to do so. I was standing with my back to the gunman and my brother John was alongside me. The gunman pushed me down the room towards the toilet and as this was happening the two fellows who had been in the Gents’ made a dash for the toilet and the gunman started shooting at them. When the shooting started, my brother got down on the floor and shouted to me to do the same. When the shooting stopped, John could not get to his feet and he told me he had been shot in both legs. I was not injured but the following day I found two bullet holes in the bottom of my right trouser leg and two bullet holes in my cap.

  John Emerson believes the gunmen were wearing linen money bags over their heads and remembers that each bag had holes cut for the eyes, nose and mouth. He says that everybody in the bar stood quietly when the gunmen entered.

  Some of the bags worn by the gunmen were a yellow colour and others a darker colour. All the gunmen were armed with pistols. One big fellow with a yellow mask and wearing a grey-checked sports jacket and dark trousers said: ‘All Protestants to the bottom of the bar.’ The Protestants moved to the bottom of the bar beside the toilets and the Catholics went to the top of the bar. There were two men in front of me at the Protestant end of the bar when the gunmen started shooting at us. The two men in front of me went down and I pretended I was shot and fell with them to the floor. Initially there were six or seven shots fired and then there was a short lull. I lay on the floor pretending to be dead. One of the gunmen came over to me and pointed his gun down at me and fired three shots into my thigh, knee and below my right ankle. I lifted my head and had a look round and saw men lying shot all over the place.

  One of those seen emerging from the toilet, who then attempted to return to seek sanctuary, was the security man from the Royal Victoria Hospital, William Greer. He says, ‘When I heard one of the gunmen asking about Prods I thought that Prods were going to be shot and I ran into the toilet, sat on the floor and placed my feet against the door to prevent it being opened. Several shots were fired through the door and I was hit on both sides of the neck and on my right leg.’

  Francis Carrothers remembers that the shooting began after Edward Farrell told the gunmen that he was a Catholic. Jimmy Coyle, who was standing behind the counter of his bar, also told them he was a Catholic.

  Frederick Graham and Pat Mahood believed the gunmen were members of the Provisional IRA, once they had enquired if there were Protestants present in the bar. Carrothers says that he saw a man running towards the toilet. The man was Edward Farrell who, unlike Frederick Graham, believed the gunmen to be Loyalists and tried to escape. One of the gunmen shouted to him to stop. Farrell was unable to get into the toilet because William Greer was inside with his feet against the door. Farrell was shot twice in the back as he reached the toilet door. The same gunman then turned to Jimmy Coyle who was standing behind the bar counter, his arms by his sides, and shot him once at point-blank range through the heart, killing him instantly. Frederick Graham remembers closing his eyes when Jimmy Coyle was shot and waiting for the gunmen to kill him.

  After the shooting the gunmen walked coolly out of the Chlorane and climbed aboard the waiting taxi, which was positioned so that it could drive into North Street, less than 100 yards from the bottom of the Shankill Road. This short journey necessitated them passing a small Catholic enclave, Unity Flats. As the taxi sped past Unity Flats two Catholic youths were walking along the pavement and heard three shots being fired from the taxi. One of the youths, Francis Fury, says he was not sure whether the shots were directed at him and his companion or whether they were just fired at Unity Flats generally. He also confirms that an Army foot patrol was near at hand but took no action to return fire at the taxi.

  The other youth, Liam McCarville, was convinced at the time that the shots were directed at him and Francis Fury. He gave police a detailed description of the taxi driver: ‘The driver was thirty-eight to forty years old. He was stoutly built and had shoulder-length curly black hair. He had a big pointed nose, sharp features and two wrinkled cheeks. I would know this man again. The windows of the taxi were down on the side facing me but I did not see the other persons in the taxi.’

  John Emerson’s son-in-law, Edward McGreevy, was drinking with his wife in the upstairs lounge of the Chlorane on the fateful evening and he gave this testimony to police the following day:

  My wife and I were beginning to drink our first one of the night when I heard thuds coming from the downstairs bar. They sounded like the noise of someone hammering with a wooden mallet. My wife and I were only in the lounge about seven or eight minutes when I heard the first thuds. There was a pause and then more of the same sounds. When I first heard the noises, the barmaid, Sheila, went to the food lift which linked the lounge to the downstairs bar and shouted something. I think she was calling for Jimmy Coyle to answer to explain the noises. When she got no reply she went to the top of the stairs outside the lounge and looked downwards. I saw her place her hand over her mouth. The other barmaid rushed across to her and as a result of something that was said I jumped to my feet and rushed downstairs and into the bar. When I entered the bar the first thing I noticed was a pile of bodies down at the bottom of the bar. I noticed smoke and the smell of sulphur in the air. I saw my father-in-law, John Emerson, lying on the floor and I remembered that my wife had followed me into the bar. I didn’t wish her to see the whole mess and I pushed her out and told Robert Emerson to look after her. I phoned the police and they arrived very quickly.

  The first policeman on the scene was George Robert McElnea who was attached to the RUC Special Patrol Group in Tennent Street Station. The record on police files for that night indicates that he arrived at the Chlorane at 10.07 P.M, several minutes after the shooting. He went into the downstairs bar to discover a pile of bodies close to the gents’ toilet and he counted eight injured and dying men. A seriously injured man, now known to have been fifty-three-year-old Samuel Corr, staggered towards him. Constable McElnea placed him on a bench and rendered what help he could.

  Three people lay dead in the bar: Jimmy Coyle, Edward Farrell and Daniel McNeill. Samuel Corr died before ambulances arrived and John Martin, one of the injured, died two weeks later.

  Alan McCrum, a Scenes of Crime Officer, arrived in Gresham Street fifteen minutes after the shooting and removed spent bullet cases from the floor of the bar. These indicated that .45, .32, and .22 calibre weapons had been used by the gunmen, and the position of the spent cases led him to conclude that guns had been fired at the rear of the bar.

  At 10.35 P.M. Mark Hagan and his passenger were released by the men holding hi
m hostage in the Windsor Bar. He walked to Tennent Street Station and reported the hijacking of his taxi. The vehicle was not found until 8.30 A.M. the following morning in a cul-de-sac in Beresford Street off the Shankill Road. When all the bullet cases – twenty-four in all – were removed from the bar the RUC’s forensic department was able to conclude that the .38 calibre cases were fired from a 9mm K-calibre pistol with a barrel rifling of six grooves, right hand twist. They ascertained that the .45 shells were not, in fact, fired from a pistol but a revolver. All the .9mm cases were fired from the same pistol, as were the .22 cartridges but the .45 cases indicated that two weapons of this calibre were discharged.

  The attack on the Chlorane Bar was a joint operation between the Brown Bear and Windsor Bar units, though the only central figure from the Brown Bear team to take part in the killing was Robert ‘Basher’ Bates. On this occasion the attack was sanctioned by the UVF leadership in retaliation for an explosion earlier that day at the Protestant-owned Times Bar in Belfast’s York Street, in which two Protestant men were killed. This explosion, which wrecked the bar, was carried out by the Provisional IRA.

  The decision to attack the Chlorane Bar was taken because of the proximity of the premises to the Shankill Road. The hit could thus be carried out speedily and the geography of the surrounding area afforded a safe getaway. It could be argued that, in a city beset with terrorism and constant security patrolling, the gang on this occasion was taking a great risk. However, they well knew that their base was less than five minutes away. Also Murphy’s confidence had been bolstered after the shooting of Mary Murray which had proved it was possible to make an escape in difficult circumstances, such as with an Army patrol close at hand. Additionally, the gang’s use of a taxi provided a few important seconds in which soldiers or policemen had to decide whether it was carrying ordinary members of the public or terrorists. The terrorists were also well aware that once they reached the North Street junction with the Catholic enclave of Unity Flats they would have a view of the Shankill Road ahead where, in the event of a police or Army roadblock, they could make a diversion. Public comments to the effect that there was insufficient security activity on the night of this slaying, 5 June, do indeed seem justified. However, the counterargument put forward by the police, then and now, is that if the life of the city is not to be disrupted twenty-four hours a day, security must be on a random basis. This view is based on the knowledge that terrorists rely on precise details of police and Army movements and that they calculate the risks attached to their operations accordingly. As we have seen, Murphy did take risks, some calculated, others not, and later in this book I will show that there were many occasions when the Butchers were searching out victims and the security presence did, in fact, prevent them from achieving their aims. There were also instances where they snatched people who were able to fight them off and escape.

  A statement which Bates later made to Detective Sergeant Cecil Chambers from Jimmy Nesbitt’s murder squad reveals how the attack on the Chlorane Bar was planned and executed. It is one of two statements made in respect of this crime and one in which Bates claimed he wished to tell the ‘whole truth’. There are people mentioned in the statement who were never charged and it has never before been printed in a newspaper or magazine. For legal reasons names will be omitted from it here. Three of the men who took part in the attack have been referred to already as Mr C. (in connection with the killing of Rice), and Mr D. and Mr E. (in connection with the attempted murder of Mary Murray and Margaret McCartney). For other names mentioned by Bates, including those of leading figures in the UVF and members of the Windsor Bar unit, I have again substituted letters of the alphabet.

  On the evening of 5 June 1976, I was working as a barman in the Long Bar. From 6.00 P.M. to 8.00 P.M. I was given a break and went home to my mother’s for tea. When I was in my mother’s I heard on the news that the Times Bar in York Road had been blown up and people killed. When I returned to the Long Bar to carry on work, I was approached by Mr F., known as Bunter. He told me I was to take part in a job in retaliation for the bombing of the Times Bar. He told me to stand by. Mr F. then left the bar and a short time later when he came back I was standing alongside Mr G., Mr D., Mr C. and Mr H. Mr I., at that time the Battalion Commander of the UVF, and Mr J. who was the Provost Marshall in the UVF, were also along with us. Mr F., who was a Military Commander in the UVF, told us that we were to hit the Chlorane Bar in Smithfield. We all went to the Windsor Bar. Mr J. arranged to get masks and handed me one. It was a yellow-coloured money bag with holes for the eyes in it. Mr I. arranged to get the guns. He arranged to get one from the Lawnbrook Club and this turned out to be a .45 snub-nosed revolver. He got another .45 revolver from the Loyalist Club in Rumford Street. Mr G. had his own .9mm pistol and a .22 pistol. Mr D. took the .22 pistol. There was two .38 revolvers in the Windsor Bar at the time but they had no ammunition for them. I was given one of the .45 snub-nosed revolvers. Somebody else in the Windsor Bar had ammunition and they loaded both .45 revolvers. It was arranged that Mr G. would be in charge of the team and Mr D. was his second-in-command. Mr H. was told that he was to do the driving and Mr C. and I were to make up the team. Somebody arranged to get a black taxi and when we were told to leave around 10.00 P.M. the taxi was sitting in Mansfield Street. Mr H. drove and the rest of us were in the back seat. We drove down the Shankill Road into North Street and straight into Gresham Street. Mr H. pulled up right outside the Chlorane Bar. We all put our masks on and got out. We all went through the front door. Mr G. shouted on everyone to stand up. When they all did, G. said: ‘Catholics to one side, Protestants to the other’. At this point somebody walked out of the toilet. G. told him to come on in but the man got behind the door again. G. fired at him. Everybody started to fire then. I pulled the hammer back on my gun and pulled the trigger but it wouldn’t fire. The rest were firing continuously. G. then said: ‘That’s it’. We all ran back to the taxi. The taxi had turned by this time and was facing North Street. Mr H. drove the taxi back to Beresford Street where we all got out and left it. We all returned to the Long Bar. On the way back up from the Chlorane, I told G. and D. that my weapon hadn’t fired. Mr I. and Mr J. were waiting on us outside the Long Bar. Mr I. took me back to the Windsor Bar and to the rear of it. He took the .45 revolver from me and began testing it. He pulled the hammer backwards and forwards several times before the weapon fired. He told me to go back to the Long Bar. I waited in the Long Bar a while with Mr C. I saw Mr I. setting up a 40oz bottle of vodka for G. and D. This was their payment for doing this job. A short time later Mr C. and I went home. I want to point out that Mr G. was in charge of his own team and it was the most feared unit in the Shankill area. G. had charge of about fifty men in all. This was another situation when it was impossible for me to refuse to carry out orders. I had no choice but to do what I was told as reprisals would have been taken against me or my family.

  Like all the statements made by Bates, one is able to detect in them a man who does not know the meaning of truth. There is a deliberate attempt to distance himself from the crime committed; to make it appear as if it had happened by accident and his participation had been minimal. Bates did not take into account when making his statement that forensic evidence would show that two .45 revolvers had been fired. In the statement he cleverly concocts a story about his gun not firing and how eventually it was tested and proven faulty. He also omits to mention the shooting from the taxi as it sped towards the Shankill Road after the killings in Gresham Street.

  In other respects he is accurate and particularly in relation to those he names. Mr G. was, in fact, the leader of the Windsor Bar unit. However, his description of this unit as ‘the most feared’ is a tactical move on his part. Again, it seems to be an attempt to weaken his own culpability by the suggestion that there were others more ruthless than his own unit members. We know that Lenny Murphy did not fear the leader and members of the Windsor Bar unit though he acknowledged they were capable of confronting him
, as at the time Waller was killed. The manner in which the guns were acquired again shows the labyrinthine methods used by Loyalist paramilitaries and how all their actions were closely associated with bars and clubs.

  Bates, however, neglects to mention that Mark Hagan, together with his passenger, was held hostage in the Windsor Bar. He deliberately avoids the fact that he was an integral part of the planning and implementation of the operation. His description of the use of the taxi provides an interesting insight into the way in which the unit operated: when the gang boarded the taxi, the four who were armed deliberately sat in the back of the vehicle leaving the driver alone at the wheel. Such an arrangement was to give the impression of a normal taxi ferrying passengers on the Shankill Road and would not, therefore, arouse suspicion.

  The hit squad did not intend to kill Protestants in the Chlorane, though they knew that Protestants would be present, as is evidenced by Mr G.’s order to the Chlorane customers when he entered the bar. Once the shooting started, however, the religion of the drinkers present mattered little. The scene in the bar was one of fear, panic and confusion, and it would seem that some of the gunmen panicked too. Bates and Mr G. were exceptions.

  Not surprisingly, considering what the victims of the attack had endured, their accounts of the incident are confused. With the aid of forensic evidence, and information from a source which cannot be disclosed, I have been able to discover the role Bates played in the shooting: Mr G. shot Cargill before he fired into the toilet at Greer and immediately following that Bates shot Coyle. Farrell was shot dead when he rushed towards the Gents’. Others were shot as all the gunmen opened fire on customers huddled at the end of the bar. Mr G. was responsible for shooting Emerson as he lay on the ground.