by Ken Wharton
On the following day there occurred an incident which, at any other time other than the Troubles might have resulted in a police chase and a reprimand or even a case before the motoring courts. But this was 1975 and it was in a Republican area of Belfast and it was during the aforementioned Troubles. Two local youths were driving a car in the area of the Clonards, just off the Falls Road. They approached an Army VCP and refused to stop, instead driving directly at the soldiers manning the checkpoint. Two soldiers were forced to take evasive action and then stated that a pistol was fired at them from within the car and returned fire. Their shots hit Charles Irvine (16) and he died at the scene and his friend Arthur McDonnell was injured.
In a classic ‘… he had a gun …’ and ‘he didn’t have a gun …’ the two sides were immediately at loggerheads with the Scots Guards (manning the VCP) stating that they were fired at and the Republicans stating that it was the car ‘backfiring.’ The author is happy to admit that no weapon was found, but the wrecked vehicle was surrounded by a mob of locals who bundled the injured McDonnell out of the car and away to a safe house. Is it not conceivable then, that the same mob with arguably a vested interest in discrediting the Army also secreted the weapon and spirited away back to an IRA armourer or Quartermaster? They were known to have done this on numerous other occasions in order to rubbish the testimonies of soldiers involved in a shooting.
VCP in Falls Road area. (Mark ‘C’)
On the same day, the UVF, by no means quiet as they had already made several murder attempts that month, continued their own version of internecine feuding. Proving that anything that INLA could do to the OIRA, they too could replicate, they shot and killed UFF member Dennis Berry (21) on the Loyalist Taughmonagh Estate in South Belfast. Taughmonagh apparently meaning ‘house on the peat land’ is a small housing estate in South West Belfast. When the area was first built, the houses consisted of very basic, small, prefabricated aluminium bungalows, located on the site of Belfast’s first airport in the Second World War. It was meant to accommodate returning servicemen and those bombed out during the Luftwaffe’s blitz on British cities – including Belfast – during the war. The area was regenerated and there are now approximately 1,500 houses in modern post-Troubles Belfast. Dennis Berry had just left a UDA club in the area, when a UVF murder gang in a stolen car drove up to him, fired at least four shots at him and roared off, leaving him lying in a pool of his own blood; he died almost immediately.
On Monday 14 July, Merlyn Rees outlined the Wilson Government’s response to comments by the IRA in relation to the current truce and their complaints about breaches by the British Army. In Parliament, he stated that there had been a reduction in the level of British Army patrols, and house searches had been scaled down. He also indicated that in the event of a permanent end to paramilitary violence, security would be returned to a ‘peace time level’. Three days later, PIRA made their response and it cost the lives of four British soldiers; although they claimed it was a ‘reprisal’ for the earlier killing of a Catholic. Who then was in breach of the increasingly hollow – and by now, wafer thin – truce?
On 17 July at Cortreasla Bridge, Fords Crossing near Forkhill, an Army helicopter landed a four man team to investigate reports of a suspiciously abandoned milk churn – a popular and devastatingly effective method of IRA bomb makers – in a field as it was thought that it may contain a device. As the four man team approached, hidden bombers, just over the Irish border detonated a landmine in a nearby hedge; the explosion killed all four men. Major Peter Willis (37) Green Howards; ATO Edward Garside (34), RAOC; ATO Calvert Brown (34), RAOC and Sergeant Samuel McCarter (33) of the Royal Engineers all died at the scene and a badly injured soldier was airlifted to hospital. Peter Willis was from Chester; Edward Garside was from Chepstow in South Wales; Calvert Brown was from Stockton-On-Tees; Samuel McCarter was from Tidworth and received a military funeral there. The incident was the worst single incident in the Crossmaglen area in the entire Troubles.
It was to be nine more days before there was another violent death in the Province and it was again the murderous handiwork of INLA. Dungiven, Co Londonderry sits astride the main A6 road which links Londonderry and Belfast. Around noon on a busy Saturday afternoon (26th), two RUC officers went to investigate a suspiciously parked car in an area packed with weekend shoppers. As they approached the vehicle, two INLA gunmen opened fire, fatally wounding Constable Robert McPherson (25) and badly wounding a colleague. The gunmen stole the dying policeman’s pistol and escaped, in full view of the shocked onlookers. PIRA and their mouthpieces in Provisional Sinn Fein denied that the killings were their responsibility and suddenly people were beginning to receive confirmation that INLA was on the scene.
Between 10 December, 1971 and 28 April, 1994, a total of 63 former serving members of the UDR were deliberately targeted and killed by paramilitaries. It was simply not enough for the IRA, INLA or, as in the following case, the UVF that these men no longer posed any viable threat to them. These killings, over a period of just over 22 years, were cynically executed in the name of Republicanism or Loyalism because of what the men had once been. This author will continue to include their names in the military Roll of Honour for Northern Ireland as they were killed for serving in the Army at one time or other.
William Hanna (45) was a self-employed tradesman who lived in Lurgan. Despite having left the UDR sometime previously, he was cold-bloodedly shot dead by the UVF outside his home after he had returned from a plumbing job. He had been accused of Loyalist paramilitary activities, and although subsequently denied, the UVF had him killed. His alleged killer was reputedly one Harris Boyle who we will hear more of shortly. This author feels that the accusations against the former Sergeant Hanna are unsubstantiated and he will be included in the ROH.
Four days later, the UVF brought further shame to the Loyalist name when they killed three members of the popular musical group, the Miami Showband. It was an appalling crime, even by the bestial standards of this Loyalist terror group, which not only rocked the world of music, but shocked the whole world. The Miami Showband massacre took place between Loughbrickland Buskhill, Co Down, and the Irish border. The band – a very popular act at music venues on both sides of the border and on both sides of the sectarian divide – was travelling to Dublin in the early hours of the morning of 31 July. The band, one of Ireland’s most popular cabaret acts, had been travelling home to Dublin after a performance at ‘The Castle Ballroom’ in Banbridge, near Newry.
The band’s five members were travelling along with their instruments and other musical paraphernalia in their minibus when they were signalled to stop by what appeared to be British soldiers at an Army VCP. Gunmen, dressed in British Army uniforms, ordered them out of their van and instructed them to line-up by the roadside. The gang, which included possibly five rogue members of the UDR, including Harris Boyle and Wesley Somerville, were all wearing stolen uniforms which may have been obtained by some of the four UDR men who were present. Boyle and Somerville then clambered aboard the minibus with an explosive device which was timed to explode after the vehicle had crossed the border – some 11 miles or so away – and throw suspicion on the band members.
Stephen Travers had recently purchased a very expensive guitar and as the two UDR/UVF men clumsily planted the device, it is possible that they may have moved the instrument which caused Travers to turn around. As he questioned what they were doing, he was punched back into line with the others alongside a ditch. However the device exploded prematurely, killing the two UDR men – whom are not included on the ROH – instantly and wrecking the minibus. The resulting explosion threw the musicians and the UVF gang to the ground.
It would appear that the UVF felt that the authorities would see this as proof that the Miami were transporting explosives across the border on behalf of PIRA and using their standing to act as mules for the Republicans. Francis O’Toole (29), the lead singer with the band and famous for his good looks, was shot an incredible 2
2 times, including four times in the face whilst he lay badly injured on the ground. Two of the other band members Anthony Geraghty (23), who was shot four times in the back, and Brian McCoy (33), shot nine times, both died at the scene. Another member of the group – Stephen Travers – was shot with a ‘dum-dum’ bullet and seriously injured but survived; the other member, Des McAlea was blown over by the blast, but remained hidden to the murder gang and he received no further injuries. Stephen Travers later said: ‘The last thing that Brian McCoy did was nudge my elbow with his as we had our hands on our heads and gave his complete and total trust to the people who were questioning us, because he said they were British Army.’
Royal Regiment of Wales troops in the Falls Road area. (Mark ‘C’)
O’Toole’s facial and head injuries were so severe, that it was clear that his cowardly killers had tried to obliterate his legendary good looks. Stephen Travers had been blown into the field by the blast and heard the murder gang killing the other band members. In his excellent book, Travers recalls: ‘I suddenly felt all the tension drain out of me. All that was going through my head was, I’m probably not going to feel this. It is going to be quick. At that moment, a voice from the road … shouted, “Come on, these bastards are dead. I got them with dum-dums.” The footsteps stopped. Then there was what seemed like an eternal silence. Then he began to walk slowly away from me.’ [The Miami Showband Massacre: A Survivor’s search for the truth, p.86, by Stephen Travers and Neil Fetherstonhaugh, Hodder Headline Ireland 2007].
The two UDR soldiers-turned UVF bombers, Wesley Somerville and Harris Boyle, were killed instantly and their bodies were mutilated; their identifications were established only by scientific procedure. Both men were decapitated and dismembered; one limbless torso was completely charred. Stephen Travers later saw a photograph of one of the dead men and said: ‘He didn’t have any head; just a black torso; no head, legs or arms.’ A severed arm with the tattoo UVF Portadown was later found a hundred yards from the scene. In 1976 three members of the UDR were sentenced to prison for their part in the attack. They received life sentences but were later released under the terms of the Good Friday Agreement. The three UDR members were James Somerville, Thomas Crozier and James McDowell. Within hours, the UVF issued a statement to the effect that one of their ‘border patrols’ had been fired upon by the IRA and that they had sustained some fatalities and injuries in the ‘shoot out’ and an explosion. They claimed to have killed three of their ‘attackers’ and wounded another. They knew that the two mutilated bodies belonging to Boyle and Somerville would be traced back to them and that their initial attempt to discredit the Miami had failed. Their damage limitation exercise was foiled by dedicated and brilliant detective work by the RUC, allied with some fortuitous forensic evidence which the UVF blunderers had left behind.
On 14 December 2011 some details of an HET (Historical Enquires Team) report into the incident were released by the families of the three men killed. The HET report found that Robin Jackson (aka ‘the Jackal’), a leading UVF gunman, had been linked by fingerprints to one of the weapons used. Jackson later claimed in police interviews he had been tipped off by a senior RUC officer to lie low after the killings. RUC headquarters was told about this claim, but no action was taken. The HET report said that Jackson claimed that he was told that his fingerprints had been found on a silencer attached to a Luger pistol used in the murders. The HET said the murders raised: ‘…disturbing questions about collusive and corrupt behaviour.’ This book will deal with the allegations of collusion between the security forces and the Loyalist paramilitaries in a later chapter. There has also been the persistent rumour – raised in many works on the massacre – that an ‘officer’ with a cut-glass ‘British accent’ had been in charge of the bogus VCP that night. This author believes that this can be easily explained by the existence of some English-born Loyalists or even UDR members among the respective ranks.
Jeanne Griffin
My theory is that the English-accented soldier notwithstanding, the Miami ambush was an operation conceived and carried out by UVF Mid-Ulster commander Robin Jackson even down to the location; his perverse nature seizing on the name of Buskhill (Bus -kill). However, the target was not the entire band but trumpet player Brian McCoy. McCoy was a Protestant originally from Caledon, Co Tyrone with close family links to the security forces and the Orange Order. His brother-in-law Eric Smyth, member of the UDR was a former B Special; years later he would be murdered by the IRA. McCoy’s father was Orange Grand Master for the Tyrone lodge. Jackson, himself a former member of the UDR was originally from Donaghmore, Co Tyrone. I believe he had approached McCoy at some stage with a view to securing his help in carrying out UVF operations in the Republic where McCoy lived with his wife and children. McCoy refused and Jackson concocted a diabolical plan of revenge against him and his band mates.
The bogus checkpoint was set up not only to plant the bomb on board (which could have been accomplished in Banbridge during their gig), but to ensure that McCoy was actually present and to direct them to drive through Newry instead of proceeding on the main road down to Dublin. The bomb was likely timed to go off whilst they were driving through Newry. The UVF would then issue their statement that the Showband were in fact IRA members on a mission to blow up the RUC barracks there. McCoy was the first to die, having received a total of nine bullets in the back from a Luger pistol. The HET report confirmed that in 1976 Jackson’s fingerprints were found on a silencer used for a Luger. An RUC man warned Jackson to ‘lie low as there was a wee job up the country that he’d be done for.’ I also believe Jackson was the gunman Travers saw going along kicking the bodies as he fired a final shot into McCoy lying beside him, making a total of nine shots fired from a Luger which entered McCoy’s body.
July made way for August and with a death on average every other day, 15 lives were lost to the Troubles. Of these, six were British soldiers and two were policemen. Six were innocent civilians of whom five were Catholics and one was a Protestant. One Loyalist was killed in feuding and the IRA was responsible for all of the eight SF deaths, despite being part of what they laughingly described as a ceasefire.
8
August
In many western societies the game of Bingo – sometimes called ‘Housey-Housey’ – is an innocent and, to the participants, an exciting game of chance. For a group of Catholic pensioners a weekly bus trip to Banbridge, Co Down from their homes, in and around the Bleary area was their regular weekly treat. On Friday 1 August, close to midnight, their trip to play the game ended in absolute tragedy. As the bus reached Gilford with its driver and eight passengers, it was signalled to halt at what they thought was a British Army checkpoint. With chilling echoes of the bogus stopping and murder of the Miami Showband, two days earlier, the uniformed men – from the UVF – cold-bloodedly machine-gunned the innocent Catholics. The attack killed one, fatally wounding another and hitting all but one of the other seven on board. Joseph Tolland (78) was only on the bus as he had cadged a lift; he died immediately and another man, the driver John Marks, was fatally wounded, dying five months afterwards. [See Chapter 13]
Later on that first day of the month, Lieutenant-General David House replaced Frank King as General Officer Commanding (GOC) of the army in Northern Ireland. Whether or not this would make the slightest difference to the ordinary squaddie on the streets was open to question.
PIRA’s cowardly and illogical tactic of targeting and killing former members of the UDR continued just 24 hours after the attack on the Bingo bus. George McCall (22) was walking home with his wife in Moy, Co Tyrone after having spent an evening of social drinking. As they approached their house, four masked PIRA gunmen stepped out of the shadows and shot the former soldier. Badly wounded but still alive, he fell to the floor, but the gunmen stood over his prostrate body and fired several more shots into him before skulking back to their rat-holes. By the month’s ending, two more UDR men’s families would be preparing for funerals brought about
by PIRA murder gangs.
Whilst looking over their shoulders at the INLA and the ongoing internecine feud, the Official IRA (OIRA) also had to be wary of their other hated rivals the Provisionals (PIRA). On 8 and 10 August, the respective ranks of OIRA and PIRA were thinned by one each, although there is some question about motive for the second killing. Martin McMenamy (17) was a PIRA member and may have been shot in error. He was apparently standing next to an OIRA member when a fellow PIRA member – and friend – shot him by mistake in the New Lodge area; his body was abandoned in the grounds of the RVH. 48 hours later, Patrick Crawford (15) and a member of OIRA was also found dead in the grounds of the RVH, close to the Falls Road in Belfast. There was much confusion as to the cause of his death, as he had been close – but not involved in – riots on the Falls Road during which shots were fired at soldiers. The likeliest explanation is that he was shot by Provisionals as part of their ongoing feud with the ‘Stickies’ as they disparagingly referred to the OIRA.
IRA FEUD
Gunner ‘A’ Royal Artillery
We were always delighted to hear some Republican from this faction or some Republican from that faction had shot another one of his own kind. ‘Let the bastards wipe each other out and leave us alone’ were my thoughts. So long as the fuckers were killing themselves and not us, then that was alright with me.
This author would find those words extremely difficult to argue with.
Back in the 1970s, McDonnell Street – part of the Balkans – linked Albert Street with Grosvenor Road and was an important cut-through for both PIRA and the Army who had a base at an old mill on Albert Street. A look today at the area shows that McDonnell Street, far from the aged terraced housing it once was, is composed of neat, red-bricked houses with very modern exteriors. At its junction with Marchioness Street, one can still see the imposing Divis Tower which still stands as a permanent reminder of the violence and death once visited upon this area. In 1975, it was different and it was outside what should have been the safety of her own house, little Siobhan McCabe (four) was taken from this life as a direct consequence of PIRA’s irresponsible decision to turn her play area into a battleground. The little girl was walking towards her house with her six year-old sister when a PIRA gunman opened fire on a routine foot patrol by the Royal Anglians from Albert Street Mill.
