Extramural Activity

Two boards about collusion in Beechmount Avenue. The first chronicles (both in words and images) alleged instances of collusion between the RUC and loyalist paramilitaries, citing John Stevens, Peter Cory, and Nuala O’Loan – pages from the 2007 O’Loan report are shown in the second, below.

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Copyright © 2016 Seosamh Mac Coılle
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The British soldiers on the right of the board above are given red berets to indicate the Paratroop Regiment, which was the regiment involved in Derry’s Bloody Sunday.

“Springhill–Westrock massacre. Belfast’s Bloody Sunday. Time for truth! On the 9th July 1972 a team of British Army snipers took up firing positions in Corry’s timber yard overlooking the nationalist Springhill/Westrock estates. Within less than an hour five civilians lay dead and two critically wounded. Among the dead were three teenagers, a father of six and a priest on his way to administer the last rites to the dead and injured. There has never been a proper police investigation, and not one solider has spent a single day in prison in connection with their deaths. The families deserve, and demand the comprehensive facts be told by the British establishment. The truth costs nothing.”

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Copyright © 2015 Seosamh Mac Coılle
X02901 Beechmount Ave John Dougal, Margaret Gargan, Fr Noel Fitzpatrick, David McCafferty, Patrick Butler

The McGurk’s Bar bombing of December, 1971 killed fifteen people – the most in a single incident during the troubles – capping what had already been a bloody year, including the “Ballymurphy Massacre” of July, in which 11 died, and starting another round of killings that would spread into the new year. Campaigners for an inquiry were busy this week in both Dublin and Belfast (Irish News).

The first nine panels of the ‘murdered’ follow to the right of the McGurk’s Bar board, presented here three-at-a-time. Note that the ninth panel (with Terry Enright in the top left) was previously the 11th panel; it is not clear why it has been moved left.

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Copyright © 2015 Seosamh Mac Coılle
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“At 8:47 pm on Saturday 4th December 1971, a no-warning bomb, planted by British terrorists, exploded on the doorstep of family-run McGurk’s Bar. Fifteen innocent men, women and children perished. Those who were not crushed or slowly asphyxiated by masonry where horrifically burned to death when shattered gas mains burst into flames beneath the rubble. Nearly the same again were dragged from the debris alive. In the aftermath of the atrocity, the British and Unionist Governments, RUC police force and British military disseminated disinformation that the bomb was in-transit and that the civilians guilty by association, if not complicit in this act of terrorism. This is despite a mountain of forensic evidence including a witness statement that saw the bomb being planted and lit before the British terrorists escaped into the night. From the moment the bomb exploded and for 40 years since, the families and friends of those murdered have campaigned constitutionally and with great dignity to clear the names of their lived ones. It is a Campaign for Truth that continues to this day. Join us at themcgurksbarmassacre.com” “