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This programme contains scenes which some viewers may find upsetting from the start and some strong language | 0:00:05 | 0:00:12 | |
How charged is vocabulary here? | 0:00:14 | 0:00:18 | |
In other words, how much mess can I get myself into | 0:00:19 | 0:00:22 | |
making this programme if I use the wrong word? | 0:00:22 | 0:00:24 | |
A terrible mess. | 0:00:26 | 0:00:28 | |
Words mean everything over here. | 0:00:29 | 0:00:32 | |
Even the term Northern Ireland, people object to. | 0:00:32 | 0:00:35 | |
It's the North of Ireland. | 0:00:35 | 0:00:38 | |
So, terminology is vital | 0:00:38 | 0:00:39 | |
and you won't be the first and I'm sure you won't be the last | 0:00:39 | 0:00:43 | |
very well-meaning, liberal, | 0:00:43 | 0:00:45 | |
broad-minded journalist from that beautiful city of London to come | 0:00:45 | 0:00:49 | |
to Ireland and get into trouble - it means you're doing your job. | 0:00:49 | 0:00:53 | |
This is the story of a dramatic and deadly series of events | 0:00:56 | 0:01:00 | |
that took place at two funerals in Belfast in March 1988. | 0:01:00 | 0:01:05 | |
EXPLOSIONS | 0:01:06 | 0:01:08 | |
I just thought it was disgraceful and despicable. | 0:01:09 | 0:01:12 | |
Sickened. Sickened by it. | 0:01:12 | 0:01:15 | |
It was barbaric. | 0:01:15 | 0:01:17 | |
It was just the worst excesses of republican violence. | 0:01:17 | 0:01:22 | |
I think people were looking down the barrel and seeing Armageddon. | 0:01:22 | 0:01:27 | |
30 years on, | 0:01:30 | 0:01:31 | |
I want to understand one of the darkest chapters in the history of | 0:01:31 | 0:01:35 | |
the conflict in Northern Ireland, | 0:01:35 | 0:01:37 | |
and find out what it means to us today. | 0:01:37 | 0:01:40 | |
GUNSHOTS | 0:01:40 | 0:01:42 | |
In the 1980s, Northern Ireland was divided. | 0:01:59 | 0:02:02 | |
Protestants and Catholics had been locked in conflict for over 20 years... | 0:02:04 | 0:02:09 | |
..with republicans fighting for a United Ireland | 0:02:09 | 0:02:12 | |
and trying to force the British troops to leave. | 0:02:12 | 0:02:16 | |
It's only now, | 0:03:21 | 0:03:22 | |
30 years on, that people from all sides who were intimately connected | 0:03:22 | 0:03:27 | |
to the events of March 1988 have agreed to talk | 0:03:27 | 0:03:31 | |
and have given me their unique perspectives on what took place. | 0:03:31 | 0:03:34 | |
The chain of events began on the 6th of March when the British Army | 0:03:40 | 0:03:44 | |
shot dead three members of the IRA who were on a mission in Gibraltar. | 0:03:44 | 0:03:49 | |
What would the IRA have been doing in Gibraltar? | 0:03:51 | 0:03:53 | |
-Why weren't they just fighting at home? -OK... | 0:03:53 | 0:03:56 | |
Well, the IRA considered it... | 0:03:56 | 0:03:59 | |
..opportune to hit and hurt the British | 0:04:03 | 0:04:06 | |
wherever it was possible to do so. | 0:04:06 | 0:04:09 | |
So, if there was a British soldier shot on the streets of Belfast | 0:04:09 | 0:04:16 | |
it would get a small... | 0:04:16 | 0:04:19 | |
..you know, postage stamp | 0:04:20 | 0:04:23 | |
in the corner of the Daily Mirror. | 0:04:23 | 0:04:25 | |
But if the IRA were to be able to kill British soldiers | 0:04:25 | 0:04:32 | |
outside of the North of Ireland, | 0:04:32 | 0:04:35 | |
that would be an added coup. | 0:04:35 | 0:04:38 | |
On the afternoon of the 6th of March, three members of the IRA, | 0:04:47 | 0:04:51 | |
two men and one woman, were shot dead by the SAS | 0:04:51 | 0:04:55 | |
on the streets of Gibraltar. | 0:04:55 | 0:04:57 | |
Did you know any of the Gibraltar three? | 0:05:01 | 0:05:04 | |
I knew Mairead. | 0:05:04 | 0:05:05 | |
Her family were local shopkeepers, | 0:05:05 | 0:05:08 | |
they were very well known. | 0:05:08 | 0:05:10 | |
I didn't know Sean Savage. I knew Dan McCann. | 0:05:10 | 0:05:14 | |
Dan's family also were shopkeepers, | 0:05:14 | 0:05:16 | |
they kept a butcher shop on the main Falls Road. | 0:05:16 | 0:05:20 | |
The three families were highly respected members | 0:05:20 | 0:05:23 | |
of the local community. | 0:05:23 | 0:05:24 | |
I've known the Savage family for about 30 years now. | 0:05:47 | 0:05:50 | |
The father was a barman. | 0:05:51 | 0:05:53 | |
The mother was a stitcher. | 0:05:53 | 0:05:56 | |
There is nothing about the Savage family that I could pluck out of | 0:05:56 | 0:06:01 | |
the air right now and say, that made them extraordinary. | 0:06:01 | 0:06:04 | |
Nothing. | 0:06:04 | 0:06:05 | |
They are the most ordinary people, | 0:06:07 | 0:06:10 | |
in the most positive sense of the word, | 0:06:10 | 0:06:12 | |
who found themselves in the most extraordinary times. | 0:06:12 | 0:06:15 | |
A gentle paramilitary? | 0:06:29 | 0:06:31 | |
Well, we never use the term paramilitary. | 0:06:31 | 0:06:34 | |
-What term did you use? -What? | 0:06:34 | 0:06:36 | |
What term did you use? | 0:06:36 | 0:06:37 | |
-He's a volunteer. -A volunteer? | 0:06:37 | 0:06:39 | |
But that sounds like you're working in the local charity shop. | 0:06:39 | 0:06:42 | |
It does, but that's the terminology used. | 0:06:42 | 0:06:44 | |
You know? | 0:06:44 | 0:06:45 | |
I had no sympathy for them whatsoever. | 0:06:49 | 0:06:52 | |
They were going out there to commit mass murder and they died. | 0:06:52 | 0:06:55 | |
So, when something like that happens and there's three terrorists | 0:06:55 | 0:06:59 | |
who're shot dead, there's no sympathy. | 0:06:59 | 0:07:01 | |
Were we happy? Yeah, probably. | 0:07:01 | 0:07:04 | |
If you're going out and carrying out military attacks | 0:07:04 | 0:07:06 | |
against the British Army | 0:07:06 | 0:07:08 | |
and the unionist community, as well, | 0:07:08 | 0:07:09 | |
you have to expect to get killed. | 0:07:09 | 0:07:11 | |
So, if you're out planting bombs and you're involved in armed conflict, | 0:07:11 | 0:07:16 | |
that's what happens. | 0:07:16 | 0:07:17 | |
You're not fighting each other with feather dusters, you know? | 0:07:17 | 0:07:21 | |
The republican community in Northern Ireland was appalled | 0:07:24 | 0:07:27 | |
by the manner of the deaths. | 0:07:27 | 0:07:29 | |
We were horrified at the deaths. Yeah. | 0:07:31 | 0:07:33 | |
In complete shock, and horrified. | 0:07:33 | 0:07:36 | |
And we believed that, you know, it was kind of a shoot to kill. | 0:07:36 | 0:07:41 | |
So... | 0:07:41 | 0:07:43 | |
Yeah, we just looked at it as three innocent people who were shot dead. | 0:07:43 | 0:07:47 | |
The Gibraltar Three were unarmed when they were killed. | 0:07:52 | 0:07:55 | |
But Mairead's car was later found across the border in Spain | 0:07:57 | 0:08:02 | |
containing 132lb of explosives. | 0:08:02 | 0:08:04 | |
The plan had been to bomb a parade | 0:08:07 | 0:08:09 | |
of the Royal Anglian Regiment in the centre of Gibraltar two days later. | 0:08:09 | 0:08:14 | |
You know, Dan was shot five times, twice in the back of the head. | 0:08:32 | 0:08:35 | |
Mairead was shot four times. | 0:08:35 | 0:08:37 | |
Sean Savage was shot 16 times. | 0:08:37 | 0:08:41 | |
It was an execution. | 0:08:41 | 0:08:43 | |
Eight days after the shootings, | 0:08:51 | 0:08:53 | |
the bodies of the Gibraltar Three were brought home. | 0:08:53 | 0:08:57 | |
Unable to land in Belfast, | 0:08:57 | 0:09:00 | |
where airport staff refused to handle their bodies, | 0:09:00 | 0:09:03 | |
the coffins were flown into Dublin. | 0:09:03 | 0:09:05 | |
From Dublin, the coffins were driven 100 miles north, | 0:09:33 | 0:09:37 | |
across the border to Belfast. | 0:09:37 | 0:09:39 | |
Was it a difficult decision as funeral directors | 0:09:46 | 0:09:50 | |
to agree to get involved in that funeral? | 0:09:50 | 0:09:53 | |
No, not really. Our perspective as funeral directors is that | 0:09:54 | 0:10:01 | |
you're putting the political side aside | 0:10:01 | 0:10:05 | |
and you're there under the instructions of the family, | 0:10:05 | 0:10:09 | |
the relatives and that you're carrying out their wishes. | 0:10:09 | 0:10:13 | |
The police operation that day - simply the intelligence | 0:10:16 | 0:10:19 | |
we received - indicated that it was going to be huge numbers | 0:10:19 | 0:10:23 | |
of people on the street. | 0:10:23 | 0:10:25 | |
Through the Catholic Church we had contact with the families. | 0:10:26 | 0:10:32 | |
The indication was that they just wanted the remains back | 0:10:32 | 0:10:36 | |
so my task was to ensure the remains got back to their families | 0:10:36 | 0:10:40 | |
in a dignified fashion. | 0:10:40 | 0:10:41 | |
As it hit the border, the whole atmosphere changed. | 0:10:45 | 0:10:48 | |
There was a massive RUC presence | 0:10:48 | 0:10:50 | |
and they started to dictate the terms for travelling north. | 0:10:50 | 0:10:54 | |
Whenever the police Land Rovers dropped away and left the hearses exposed, | 0:11:07 | 0:11:11 | |
where we got pelted with bricks and bottles | 0:11:11 | 0:11:15 | |
and anything they could get their hands on, which was a bit scary. | 0:11:15 | 0:11:20 | |
The car that I was in, | 0:11:24 | 0:11:26 | |
the side window was broken and a brick came in and hit me on the shoulder | 0:11:26 | 0:11:29 | |
and bounced off and hit his brother-in-law, | 0:11:29 | 0:11:32 | |
split his head open. | 0:11:32 | 0:11:33 | |
So it was a very tense time between there | 0:11:35 | 0:11:38 | |
and when we got to just outside Lisburn, | 0:11:38 | 0:11:41 | |
when basically, the RUC hijacked the coffins | 0:11:41 | 0:11:45 | |
and we were told to take another route. | 0:11:45 | 0:11:47 | |
The republicans, they use very particular vocabulary. | 0:11:54 | 0:11:58 | |
In their words, they say the RUC hijacked the bodies | 0:11:58 | 0:12:01 | |
and returned them to their families. | 0:12:01 | 0:12:04 | |
What do you say to that, Cyril? | 0:12:04 | 0:12:06 | |
Absolutely not. | 0:12:06 | 0:12:07 | |
The mission that I was on | 0:12:07 | 0:12:09 | |
was to ensure that the remains got back to the respective homes | 0:12:09 | 0:12:13 | |
in a dignified fashion and that's what happened. | 0:12:13 | 0:12:16 | |
How would you describe your politics? | 0:12:26 | 0:12:29 | |
And what about your wife? | 0:12:31 | 0:12:32 | |
What did that involve for both of you? | 0:12:36 | 0:12:38 | |
And would you have hidden weapons? | 0:12:55 | 0:12:58 | |
-Yeah. -Where would you hide them? | 0:12:58 | 0:13:01 | |
Stupid places, when we thought about it - under mattresses. | 0:13:01 | 0:13:05 | |
What about this sofa? | 0:13:06 | 0:13:08 | |
Oh, no, never, no. | 0:13:08 | 0:13:09 | |
No bullets in the cushions? | 0:13:09 | 0:13:11 | |
-Oh, there was. -So, your wife, | 0:13:11 | 0:13:14 | |
would she unzip the back of the cushion and put the bullets inside? | 0:13:14 | 0:13:17 | |
Yeah. | 0:13:17 | 0:13:19 | |
Can't have been very comfortable, Stephen. | 0:13:19 | 0:13:21 | |
HE CHUCKLES | 0:13:21 | 0:13:22 | |
On the night the bodies of the Gibraltar Three arrived | 0:13:24 | 0:13:28 | |
back in Belfast, Stephen's 32-year-old son Kevin, | 0:13:28 | 0:13:31 | |
a member of the IRA, was out patrolling the neighbourhood | 0:13:31 | 0:13:35 | |
when he was shot dead by the British Army. | 0:13:35 | 0:13:37 | |
There was suspicion that the British Army would be basically... | 0:13:40 | 0:13:46 | |
..trying to cause trouble in and around the... | 0:13:48 | 0:13:51 | |
..the family homes and Kevin was out trying to do something about that. | 0:13:53 | 0:13:59 | |
So, Kevin was patrolling around near Sean Savage's house? | 0:14:00 | 0:14:03 | |
-Yeah. -Would he have been trying to shoot a member of the army? | 0:14:03 | 0:14:07 | |
So he wasn't just trying to protect Sean Savage's house? | 0:14:09 | 0:14:13 | |
Would he have taken a pot at a soldier, wherever he would have seen one? | 0:14:21 | 0:14:25 | |
Oh, aye. No hesitation. | 0:14:25 | 0:14:26 | |
Did you feel that he had bravely given his life for the cause? | 0:14:35 | 0:14:39 | |
Yes, yes. | 0:14:39 | 0:14:41 | |
Was that any consolation for losing him? | 0:14:41 | 0:14:43 | |
Not really. | 0:14:43 | 0:14:45 | |
On Tuesday the 15th of March, | 0:14:53 | 0:14:55 | |
the day before the funeral of the Gibraltar Three, | 0:14:55 | 0:14:58 | |
there was a heavy police presence around the homes of their families. | 0:14:58 | 0:15:03 | |
And, amongst republicans, | 0:15:03 | 0:15:04 | |
a sense of nervousness about how the funeral would be policed. | 0:15:04 | 0:15:08 | |
For several years prior to the funeral of the Gibraltar Three, | 0:15:13 | 0:15:19 | |
all of our funerals had been attacked. | 0:15:19 | 0:15:21 | |
There were scenes in Derry where - unseemly scenes - where a coffin was knocked over and almost | 0:15:21 | 0:15:25 | |
split open when the RUC baton charged the mourners. | 0:15:25 | 0:15:28 | |
For years we were used to our funerals being attacked | 0:15:30 | 0:15:33 | |
and indeed we had no reason to believe otherwise | 0:15:33 | 0:15:35 | |
that this wouldn't be the case that morning. | 0:15:35 | 0:15:37 | |
Over the years, republican funerals had become symbolic events, | 0:15:39 | 0:15:43 | |
used by the IRA as a show of strength. | 0:15:43 | 0:15:46 | |
Gunmen in balaclavas would salute the dead with a volley of shots, | 0:15:48 | 0:15:52 | |
invariably sparking conflict with the police. | 0:15:52 | 0:15:57 | |
Shoot, shoot, shoot! | 0:15:57 | 0:16:00 | |
So we're moving on now to Wednesday the 16th of March, | 0:16:02 | 0:16:06 | |
which was the funeral itself. | 0:16:06 | 0:16:08 | |
You need fortification for this, do you, Cyril? | 0:16:08 | 0:16:11 | |
The funeral itself, yeah. | 0:16:11 | 0:16:13 | |
What was your role on that day? | 0:16:16 | 0:16:18 | |
Well, I had drawn up a plan | 0:16:19 | 0:16:23 | |
which was a very detailed plan | 0:16:23 | 0:16:25 | |
involving police and military, and that plan had been approved. | 0:16:25 | 0:16:30 | |
On the evening of the previous day to the funeral, | 0:16:31 | 0:16:36 | |
I was summoned to a meeting with my superior | 0:16:36 | 0:16:41 | |
and was told that there was a change of plan. | 0:16:41 | 0:16:43 | |
At the last minute, we were told we weren't deploying that day, | 0:16:46 | 0:16:49 | |
there'd been an agreement made so therefore there was not going to be | 0:16:49 | 0:16:52 | |
police on the ground. | 0:16:52 | 0:16:54 | |
Basically, what happened was the Catholic Church were in contact with | 0:16:54 | 0:17:00 | |
our headquarters and gave an undertaking that there would be no | 0:17:00 | 0:17:05 | |
paramilitary trappings and there would be nothing of that nature. | 0:17:05 | 0:17:09 | |
And as a quid pro quo to that, the Chief Constable decided | 0:17:10 | 0:17:16 | |
we would adopt a standoff approach. | 0:17:16 | 0:17:19 | |
Were you surprised by that decision? | 0:17:20 | 0:17:22 | |
I was shocked. | 0:17:22 | 0:17:24 | |
That was anathema in policing terms, | 0:17:24 | 0:17:29 | |
is that you simply do not do that, | 0:17:29 | 0:17:32 | |
but that was my instruction, and that was the policy for the day. | 0:17:32 | 0:17:35 | |
Had the RUC ever been pulled from an IRA funeral previously? | 0:17:38 | 0:17:41 | |
Not to my knowledge. | 0:17:41 | 0:17:42 | |
On Wednesday the 16th of March, the Gibraltar Three - Dan McCann, | 0:17:56 | 0:18:01 | |
Sean Savage, and Mairead Farrell - were buried in a triple funeral. | 0:18:01 | 0:18:05 | |
I remember that republicans were | 0:18:11 | 0:18:16 | |
very surprised, almost shocked, in fact, | 0:18:16 | 0:18:19 | |
that the British Army and the RUC did stay clear of the funerals. | 0:18:19 | 0:18:24 | |
Pleasantly surprised or suspicious? | 0:18:24 | 0:18:27 | |
Well, suspicious. | 0:18:27 | 0:18:30 | |
No police, no military, no armoured cars, no jeeps, no checkpoints. | 0:18:33 | 0:18:39 | |
This is amazing, this is the way it should be. | 0:18:39 | 0:18:41 | |
Little did I know what was in wait. | 0:18:44 | 0:18:47 | |
This triple republican funeral was a major event in West Belfast | 0:18:49 | 0:18:55 | |
with thousands of people lining the route to pay their respects. | 0:18:55 | 0:18:59 | |
We had lowered Mairead Farrell's coffin down into the grave | 0:19:20 | 0:19:27 | |
and we were getting ready to lower the second. | 0:19:27 | 0:19:30 | |
We were lowering Dan's coffin down into the republican plot | 0:19:33 | 0:19:37 | |
and there was a loud boom. | 0:19:37 | 0:19:39 | |
EXPLOSIONS | 0:19:39 | 0:19:42 | |
Jesus! | 0:19:44 | 0:19:45 | |
And then people were sort of in a panic. | 0:19:45 | 0:19:49 | |
Get down, everybody, get down! | 0:19:49 | 0:19:52 | |
SCREAMING | 0:19:52 | 0:19:54 | |
I was confused, at first I thought actually we were being mortar bombed | 0:19:57 | 0:20:01 | |
from across the M1, which leads into a loyalist area, so we ducked down. | 0:20:01 | 0:20:05 | |
There were more explosions. | 0:20:05 | 0:20:07 | |
EXPLOSIONS | 0:20:07 | 0:20:09 | |
We thought, | 0:20:09 | 0:20:10 | |
were some of the graves booby-trapped? | 0:20:10 | 0:20:12 | |
Was there a timing device in some of the graves? | 0:20:12 | 0:20:14 | |
And you're trying to take families away from the graves, | 0:20:14 | 0:20:17 | |
because no-one had a clue at that stage what was happening. | 0:20:17 | 0:20:19 | |
I took the microphone and tried my best to restore calm. | 0:20:22 | 0:20:25 | |
Can people please stay calm? Can people stay where they are? | 0:20:25 | 0:20:29 | |
I seen this fellow, | 0:20:30 | 0:20:32 | |
ended up, Michael Stone, having this handgun in his hand. | 0:20:32 | 0:20:36 | |
GUNSHOTS | 0:20:36 | 0:20:38 | |
Some of the people screaming, "There he is, there he is" and... | 0:20:40 | 0:20:43 | |
..you know, some of the people running down towards him. | 0:20:44 | 0:20:48 | |
I got fairly close to Stone. | 0:20:49 | 0:20:52 | |
And he turned around and he fired a couple shots at me | 0:20:52 | 0:20:57 | |
but he wasn't... | 0:20:57 | 0:20:58 | |
It must've been the adrenaline and stuff like that, | 0:20:58 | 0:21:01 | |
he wasn't able to hit me. | 0:21:01 | 0:21:03 | |
And then he pulled out a grenade and he threw it in my general direction. | 0:21:07 | 0:21:11 | |
As it exploded, | 0:21:13 | 0:21:16 | |
there was shrapnel fired all over the place and it was actually | 0:21:16 | 0:21:19 | |
underneath the water whenever it exploded | 0:21:19 | 0:21:22 | |
which meant, as the fragments... | 0:21:22 | 0:21:26 | |
you know, they sizzled. | 0:21:26 | 0:21:27 | |
They were running after a man who was throwing grenades at them. | 0:21:51 | 0:21:55 | |
He was shooting at them and they | 0:21:55 | 0:21:57 | |
were still were able to apprehend him on the motorway, and I thought, | 0:21:57 | 0:22:02 | |
if that was a British soldier doing that, | 0:22:02 | 0:22:04 | |
he'd probably be awarded the Victoria Cross for bravery. | 0:22:04 | 0:22:08 | |
I felt an impact on my... | 0:22:08 | 0:22:12 | |
inner thigh and I realised that I was injured. | 0:22:12 | 0:22:17 | |
My dad and the limousine drivers | 0:22:19 | 0:22:22 | |
just started getting all the injured | 0:22:22 | 0:22:24 | |
and the wounded into the limousine. | 0:22:24 | 0:22:26 | |
The limousines then were used for ferrying | 0:22:29 | 0:22:31 | |
the wounded and the injured down to the hospital. | 0:22:31 | 0:22:34 | |
They actually put me into the hearse. | 0:22:36 | 0:22:38 | |
They took me in, they put me under, | 0:22:40 | 0:22:42 | |
give me anaesthetic and operated, took the shrapnel out, | 0:22:42 | 0:22:46 | |
and gave me a lot of stitches. | 0:22:46 | 0:22:48 | |
Meanwhile, Michael Stone had reached the motorway, | 0:22:49 | 0:22:53 | |
where the crowd of mourners caught up with him | 0:22:53 | 0:22:56 | |
and successfully overpowered him. | 0:22:56 | 0:22:58 | |
When did you first become aware that the funeral was being attacked? | 0:23:01 | 0:23:07 | |
Well, we had the benefit of heli-telly - | 0:23:07 | 0:23:11 | |
the army had a helicopter in the air and we had this small little monitor | 0:23:11 | 0:23:17 | |
that was about ten inches square. | 0:23:17 | 0:23:19 | |
People were diving down | 0:23:21 | 0:23:22 | |
and people were starting to run | 0:23:22 | 0:23:25 | |
and you could hear these sort of muffled explosions. | 0:23:25 | 0:23:29 | |
Then I directed officers from Grosvenor Road | 0:23:29 | 0:23:32 | |
to approach the motorway. | 0:23:32 | 0:23:34 | |
So, we jumped into the Land Rover | 0:23:36 | 0:23:38 | |
and headed as quickly as we could down | 0:23:38 | 0:23:40 | |
towards where the explosion was coming from. | 0:23:40 | 0:23:42 | |
We actually got up | 0:23:45 | 0:23:46 | |
as they were manhandling who I now know to be Michael Stone | 0:23:46 | 0:23:50 | |
from the back of a car. | 0:23:50 | 0:23:51 | |
My first concern with explosions was, have you any grenades? | 0:23:52 | 0:23:57 | |
Cos what I didn't want to do was put my hand in his pocket and pull out | 0:23:57 | 0:24:00 | |
a grenade and kill me or kill everybody else. | 0:24:00 | 0:24:02 | |
After the commotions and stuff in Milltown, | 0:24:13 | 0:24:17 | |
I'll always remember walking in and the phone had rang... | 0:24:17 | 0:24:22 | |
..and this guy saying, | 0:24:23 | 0:24:26 | |
"We missed you today but we'll get you the next time." | 0:24:26 | 0:24:30 | |
My dad had come in and he was in | 0:24:33 | 0:24:38 | |
a very bad state of shock... | 0:24:38 | 0:24:40 | |
..and he just broke down. | 0:24:42 | 0:24:44 | |
My dad actually ended up taking a nervous breakdown | 0:24:47 | 0:24:51 | |
over the whole incident. | 0:24:51 | 0:24:53 | |
He went out of work for well over a year and even trying to get him | 0:24:55 | 0:25:02 | |
motivated to come out on funerals and stuff with us after that was... | 0:25:02 | 0:25:08 | |
it was very hard. | 0:25:08 | 0:25:10 | |
Michael Stone, a seasoned loyalist paramilitary, | 0:25:13 | 0:25:16 | |
later claimed that his ambition had been | 0:25:16 | 0:25:19 | |
to assassinate republican leaders Gerry Adams, Martin McGuinness | 0:25:19 | 0:25:23 | |
and Danny Morrison. | 0:25:23 | 0:25:24 | |
In fact, he attacked the mourners indiscriminately, | 0:25:26 | 0:25:30 | |
injuring 60 people and killing three of the young men | 0:25:30 | 0:25:34 | |
who chased him through the cemetery. | 0:25:34 | 0:25:36 | |
Of the three dead, only one - Kevin Brady - | 0:25:39 | 0:25:42 | |
happened to be a member of the IRA. | 0:25:42 | 0:25:45 | |
He worked for the republicans and was Danny Morrison's driver. | 0:25:45 | 0:25:50 | |
To be in his company | 0:25:54 | 0:25:56 | |
was quite a feeling. He always brought joy into your life, | 0:25:56 | 0:26:01 | |
he could be quite funny. | 0:26:01 | 0:26:03 | |
He could be quite droll, as well, and basically I loved him. | 0:26:03 | 0:26:07 | |
And so... | 0:26:07 | 0:26:08 | |
I'm sorry. | 0:26:13 | 0:26:15 | |
The gun went through his stomach and out his back and hit an artery. | 0:26:19 | 0:26:24 | |
Just... | 0:26:24 | 0:26:25 | |
And that was it. If it had been quarter of an inch either way, | 0:26:26 | 0:26:29 | |
he would have been OK. | 0:26:29 | 0:26:32 | |
Heartbreaking. | 0:26:38 | 0:26:39 | |
Somebody that you saw a few hours before... | 0:26:41 | 0:26:44 | |
..just lying cold on a table. | 0:26:47 | 0:26:49 | |
The other two victims were married men with children | 0:26:52 | 0:26:55 | |
and had no political involvement. | 0:26:55 | 0:26:57 | |
John Murray's siblings have never spoken publicly before, | 0:26:58 | 0:27:02 | |
having lived with the stigma | 0:27:02 | 0:27:04 | |
of their brother dying at an IRA funeral. | 0:27:04 | 0:27:06 | |
He was at that funeral simply because | 0:27:09 | 0:27:12 | |
he had a right to be there. | 0:27:12 | 0:27:14 | |
It was wrong what happened in Gibraltar | 0:27:14 | 0:27:17 | |
but it wasn't a big deal - in Ireland we all go to funerals. | 0:27:17 | 0:27:21 | |
My husband called to work to tell me that John was injured. | 0:27:22 | 0:27:25 | |
He says, "Mary, he's dead." | 0:27:27 | 0:27:29 | |
So the next thing was, "We'll go and see him, where is he?" | 0:27:30 | 0:27:34 | |
SIREN BLARES | 0:27:34 | 0:27:38 | |
When we got to the hospital... | 0:27:38 | 0:27:39 | |
..and my mother and sisters went in to identify him... | 0:27:40 | 0:27:43 | |
..and we just couldn't believe... | 0:27:44 | 0:27:48 | |
John's gone. | 0:27:48 | 0:27:49 | |
My mummy was there and she said, "Peter, there he is." | 0:27:54 | 0:27:59 | |
Fella I loved... a lovely man, wasn't he? | 0:28:04 | 0:28:07 | |
And she says, "Be brave, Peter, | 0:28:08 | 0:28:11 | |
"there's John" and I just held John and I held my mummy, and | 0:28:11 | 0:28:17 | |
that's what I recall of that day. | 0:28:17 | 0:28:21 | |
When her husband, Thomas McErlean, was killed at the funeral, | 0:28:28 | 0:28:33 | |
Anna was 19 and pregnant with their third child. | 0:28:33 | 0:28:36 | |
That's the clothes Thomas was wearing when he was killed. | 0:28:45 | 0:28:48 | |
You can see where they cut his jumper off him. | 0:28:51 | 0:28:54 | |
And where he was shot in the trunk of the neck... | 0:28:55 | 0:28:58 | |
There wasn't much blood | 0:29:00 | 0:29:02 | |
and I think people in the graveyard just thought he had fainted, | 0:29:02 | 0:29:06 | |
because had haemorrhaged inside. | 0:29:06 | 0:29:09 | |
I can still smell him off them. | 0:29:21 | 0:29:22 | |
-Can you? -Yeah. | 0:29:22 | 0:29:24 | |
It's been a comfort. Almost. | 0:29:24 | 0:29:28 | |
SHE SIGHS | 0:29:31 | 0:29:33 | |
As far as I was concerned | 0:29:42 | 0:29:44 | |
and people, from a loyalist concern, | 0:29:44 | 0:29:46 | |
if you went to an IRA funeral, you were a republican. | 0:29:46 | 0:29:49 | |
There was all aspects of being involved in republicanism, you know, | 0:29:51 | 0:29:54 | |
you were a gunman, you were hiding guns, | 0:29:54 | 0:29:56 | |
you were driving cars, you were raising funds, | 0:29:56 | 0:29:58 | |
you were a supporter, you were involved in the republican movement, | 0:29:58 | 0:30:01 | |
so anybody that was at a funeral of three IRA volunteers | 0:30:01 | 0:30:05 | |
that was killed in military action in Gibraltar, | 0:30:05 | 0:30:07 | |
they were supporters of the republican movement. | 0:30:07 | 0:30:10 | |
So as far as we were concerned within the loyalist community, | 0:30:10 | 0:30:14 | |
everybody at that funeral was a target. | 0:30:14 | 0:30:16 | |
For some people, | 0:30:18 | 0:30:19 | |
the fact that the security forces stayed away from a funeral | 0:30:19 | 0:30:23 | |
on the very day that Michael Stone launched his attack | 0:30:23 | 0:30:26 | |
was just too much of a coincidence. | 0:30:26 | 0:30:29 | |
To me, it has never, ever been explained how | 0:30:32 | 0:30:36 | |
on the first day in five years | 0:30:36 | 0:30:39 | |
that the police and the army decide not to monitor an IRA funeral | 0:30:39 | 0:30:42 | |
that that's the day that | 0:30:42 | 0:30:44 | |
Michael Stone, out of the blue, decides to attack. | 0:30:44 | 0:30:47 | |
So, in my mind and the mind of most people in our community, | 0:30:47 | 0:30:52 | |
there was collusion. | 0:30:52 | 0:30:53 | |
I had noticed when I arrived at the plot that | 0:30:55 | 0:30:59 | |
there was a white van parked on the M1 motorway, | 0:30:59 | 0:31:03 | |
which I just presumed was | 0:31:03 | 0:31:05 | |
the British Army... | 0:31:05 | 0:31:07 | |
..or the RUC. | 0:31:07 | 0:31:09 | |
The significance of the white van seen on the motorway | 0:31:09 | 0:31:12 | |
remains a contentious issue. | 0:31:12 | 0:31:15 | |
Many Catholics made the assumption it was a police vehicle | 0:31:15 | 0:31:18 | |
and was part of Michael Stone's getaway plan. | 0:31:18 | 0:31:21 | |
Well, there was a van sitting on the M1, | 0:31:24 | 0:31:27 | |
which he was trying to get down to, | 0:31:27 | 0:31:30 | |
so I think there was collusion there. | 0:31:30 | 0:31:33 | |
I believe the British Army | 0:31:33 | 0:31:36 | |
were behind it. | 0:31:36 | 0:31:38 | |
So, you think somehow the British state | 0:31:38 | 0:31:40 | |
were involved in giving Michael Stone a free run? | 0:31:40 | 0:31:42 | |
Yep. | 0:31:42 | 0:31:44 | |
There's no way that a police van was going to get Stone away. | 0:31:45 | 0:31:49 | |
Never would there have been any sort of arrangement | 0:31:53 | 0:31:56 | |
to lift a terrorist away. That's a nonsense. | 0:31:56 | 0:31:59 | |
The white van could have been there to assist his escape. | 0:32:04 | 0:32:08 | |
It didn't necessarily have to be | 0:32:08 | 0:32:11 | |
British Army or an RUC white van. | 0:32:11 | 0:32:14 | |
It could have been a loyalist | 0:32:14 | 0:32:17 | |
friend of his or a member of | 0:32:17 | 0:32:19 | |
a loyalist paramilitary organisation, etc. | 0:32:19 | 0:32:22 | |
People have their own interpretation of it. | 0:32:22 | 0:32:25 | |
Do you believe that Michael Stone was acting alone? | 0:32:27 | 0:32:30 | |
Yes. Yes, he was acting alone, he told me he was acting alone. | 0:32:30 | 0:32:34 | |
He got an Ulsterbus there that day to Milltown | 0:32:34 | 0:32:37 | |
and he walked in and that was that. | 0:32:37 | 0:32:39 | |
And he took it upon himself to do what he was doing, | 0:32:39 | 0:32:42 | |
you know, as far as we were concerned in the loyalist community, | 0:32:42 | 0:32:45 | |
there was no collusion. | 0:32:45 | 0:32:46 | |
Most people seen Michael Stone as a hero. | 0:32:53 | 0:32:56 | |
Simply because the fact of the matter is that | 0:32:56 | 0:32:58 | |
he took the war to the IRA. | 0:32:58 | 0:33:00 | |
In celebration? | 0:33:04 | 0:33:05 | |
Yeah, oh, aye. | 0:33:07 | 0:33:08 | |
You know, I heard the songs being | 0:33:29 | 0:33:32 | |
sang and, you know, within our community | 0:33:32 | 0:33:35 | |
and obviously there was murals went up celebrating what he did, | 0:33:35 | 0:33:38 | |
you know, cos at the end of the day, he was a hero, you know? | 0:33:38 | 0:33:42 | |
# Knew when to run | 0:33:42 | 0:33:43 | |
# But he never just walked away | 0:33:43 | 0:33:46 | |
# And the fenians started chasing him | 0:33:46 | 0:33:48 | |
# There was 20 dozen more | 0:33:48 | 0:33:51 | |
# Michael stopped, had a wee look | 0:33:51 | 0:33:54 | |
# And threw a couple more... # | 0:33:54 | 0:33:56 | |
In the aftermath of the funeral, | 0:33:56 | 0:33:57 | |
the police and army sat together to watch news footage of the event. | 0:33:57 | 0:34:02 | |
Unlike the British Army, the police were recruited locally | 0:34:03 | 0:34:07 | |
and were largely drawn from the Protestant population. | 0:34:07 | 0:34:10 | |
For police officers to carry on in the manner that they did - | 0:34:13 | 0:34:16 | |
every time one of the grenades blew up | 0:34:16 | 0:34:20 | |
there was cheers going up. | 0:34:20 | 0:34:21 | |
You thought you were at a football match. | 0:34:21 | 0:34:23 | |
It was, "Yeah! Yeah! Pity he didn't get more of them!" | 0:34:23 | 0:34:28 | |
The reaction, for me, I thought was totally disgusting. | 0:34:29 | 0:34:33 | |
Certainly nobody I ever knew | 0:34:35 | 0:34:37 | |
had any praise for him, you know... | 0:34:37 | 0:34:41 | |
..that's all I can say, really. | 0:34:45 | 0:34:47 | |
Nobody was running about going, "Ya-ho." | 0:34:48 | 0:34:50 | |
Just 72 hours after the funeral of the Gibraltar Three, | 0:34:55 | 0:34:59 | |
republicans prepared for another funeral. | 0:34:59 | 0:35:01 | |
The funeral of IRA volunteer Kevin Brady, | 0:35:15 | 0:35:18 | |
who'd been killed by Michael Stone three days earlier, | 0:35:18 | 0:35:22 | |
took place on Saturday the 19th of March. | 0:35:22 | 0:35:25 | |
Were you in charge of police operations that day? | 0:35:30 | 0:35:32 | |
I was. It was a similar arrangement to the previous funerals - | 0:35:32 | 0:35:38 | |
that we wouldn't closely police the event. | 0:35:38 | 0:35:42 | |
And again I was in Andersonstown Police Station with | 0:35:42 | 0:35:46 | |
the same two officers, | 0:35:46 | 0:35:47 | |
my two superiors were with me. | 0:35:47 | 0:35:49 | |
There was a sense of nervousness. | 0:35:53 | 0:35:55 | |
We were on exactly the same funeral route leaving St Agnes's Chapel | 0:35:55 | 0:35:59 | |
going down to the republican plots. | 0:35:59 | 0:36:02 | |
This was the exact same route that we had followed three days earlier, | 0:36:03 | 0:36:07 | |
so it was quite fraught. | 0:36:07 | 0:36:09 | |
I was on the main Andersonstown Road as part of the funeral cortege | 0:36:13 | 0:36:17 | |
and we passed a section of the road which had shops on either side. | 0:36:17 | 0:36:21 | |
And a car came very, very fast to my left, | 0:36:23 | 0:36:28 | |
up the road, in front of the shop. | 0:36:28 | 0:36:31 | |
This car had come round the bend, | 0:36:34 | 0:36:37 | |
had ignored the stewards who were simply, | 0:36:37 | 0:36:39 | |
you know, asking people to go into the side... | 0:36:39 | 0:36:42 | |
If the car had simply just | 0:36:42 | 0:36:44 | |
moved in to the side of the road as people did, | 0:36:44 | 0:36:47 | |
then nothing would have happened. | 0:36:47 | 0:36:50 | |
As the car approached, | 0:36:57 | 0:36:58 | |
Kevin Brady's sister Ann was carrying his coffin | 0:36:58 | 0:37:02 | |
at the front of the cortege. | 0:37:02 | 0:37:04 | |
We just thought, "Oh, my God, it's happening again, | 0:37:05 | 0:37:08 | |
"the loyalists have come again to attack another funeral." | 0:37:08 | 0:37:11 | |
The heli-telly started to focus in. | 0:37:21 | 0:37:25 | |
We picked up a surge in the crowd | 0:37:25 | 0:37:27 | |
and realised then that there was a car - | 0:37:27 | 0:37:30 | |
it seemed to be a white or silver car - | 0:37:30 | 0:37:32 | |
had stopped and the crowd were gathered around the car. | 0:37:32 | 0:37:36 | |
Under attack, | 0:37:36 | 0:37:37 | |
one of the men in the car produced a pistol | 0:37:37 | 0:37:40 | |
and fired a single warning shot into the air. | 0:37:40 | 0:37:43 | |
GUNSHOT | 0:37:45 | 0:37:46 | |
SCREAMING | 0:37:46 | 0:37:47 | |
The crowd sort of burst back | 0:37:49 | 0:37:52 | |
and it looked to us as if there had been a shot, | 0:37:52 | 0:37:56 | |
or something, maybe fired. | 0:37:56 | 0:37:58 | |
But the crowd then very quickly re-gathered and started thumping | 0:38:00 | 0:38:05 | |
and banging at the car. | 0:38:05 | 0:38:06 | |
The crowd reacted because they | 0:38:11 | 0:38:12 | |
thought they were under attack again. | 0:38:12 | 0:38:15 | |
Here you had a car pulling up, | 0:38:15 | 0:38:17 | |
they produced weapons. So automatically in the aftermath of | 0:38:17 | 0:38:22 | |
the Michael Stone situation, they thought, "Here we go again." | 0:38:22 | 0:38:26 | |
An ordinary Catholic woman, who happened to be walking | 0:38:27 | 0:38:31 | |
along the Andersonstown Road | 0:38:31 | 0:38:32 | |
that day, found herself caught up in the funeral procession. | 0:38:32 | 0:38:36 | |
She told her daughter what she witnessed. | 0:38:36 | 0:38:38 | |
Also in the crowd was a republican from Glasgow who had travelled | 0:38:59 | 0:39:03 | |
to Belfast for the funeral. | 0:39:03 | 0:39:05 | |
Everybody's running for the car | 0:39:09 | 0:39:11 | |
so your adrenaline, | 0:39:11 | 0:39:13 | |
you're running beside them, you're running towards that car. | 0:39:13 | 0:39:17 | |
So you ran towards the car, too? | 0:39:17 | 0:39:19 | |
Yeah. | 0:39:19 | 0:39:20 | |
Yep. We were, like, right on the, sort of, outside of the crowd. | 0:39:20 | 0:39:25 | |
Seen all the crowd round about the car | 0:39:25 | 0:39:28 | |
and that's when we seen the guys getting dragged out | 0:39:28 | 0:39:30 | |
and taken into Casement. | 0:39:30 | 0:39:32 | |
The two men - who subsequently turned out to be British soldiers - | 0:39:33 | 0:39:38 | |
were taken into Casement Park, a walled sports ground just opposite. | 0:39:38 | 0:39:42 | |
Nuala will only speak anonymously about what happened next, | 0:39:45 | 0:39:49 | |
as her mother still fears reprisals from republicans. | 0:39:49 | 0:39:52 | |
They brought one over the railings, | 0:40:31 | 0:40:34 | |
and his leg was caught - if I remember right - | 0:40:34 | 0:40:37 | |
his leg was caught in the railings. Yeah. | 0:40:37 | 0:40:40 | |
The injured men were put in a black taxi and driven away by the IRA. | 0:40:47 | 0:40:52 | |
What do you feel about the fact that the corporals weren't rescued, Noel? | 0:40:58 | 0:41:03 | |
We were very, very annoyed. | 0:41:03 | 0:41:05 | |
Police-wise, we were raging, is the right term, | 0:41:05 | 0:41:08 | |
because immediately straightaway | 0:41:08 | 0:41:10 | |
people were saying we could've been there, we could've saved them. | 0:41:10 | 0:41:13 | |
We didn't take any action initially | 0:41:16 | 0:41:18 | |
because we had no idea what was going on | 0:41:18 | 0:41:20 | |
and of course I was operating under the strict policy | 0:41:20 | 0:41:25 | |
that we would not deploy. | 0:41:25 | 0:41:27 | |
As soon as we realised something was wrong, we decided we needed to go, | 0:41:28 | 0:41:32 | |
we needed to get out there. | 0:41:32 | 0:41:34 | |
So you defied orders to go? | 0:41:34 | 0:41:36 | |
We did. | 0:41:36 | 0:41:38 | |
One of the soldiers had carried ID which mentioned Hereford | 0:41:42 | 0:41:47 | |
and Hereford is the headquarters of the SAS, | 0:41:47 | 0:41:50 | |
so the crowd and the IRA that came on the scene | 0:41:50 | 0:41:52 | |
thought that they had got two SAS men. | 0:41:52 | 0:41:55 | |
The IRA had confused Herford - | 0:41:56 | 0:41:58 | |
a town in Germany, where the British Army had a base - | 0:41:58 | 0:42:02 | |
with Hereford, the headquarters of the SAS in Britain. | 0:42:02 | 0:42:06 | |
They believed they had captured two members of the same elite unit | 0:42:07 | 0:42:11 | |
who had killed the Gibraltar Three only 13 days before. | 0:42:11 | 0:42:14 | |
One guy came out the left side | 0:42:32 | 0:42:34 | |
and sort of crawled a wee bit that way. | 0:42:34 | 0:42:37 | |
The door opened and there was a guy come out the driver's side and tried | 0:42:41 | 0:42:45 | |
taking a run, stumbled. | 0:42:45 | 0:42:46 | |
And I just seen your man... | 0:42:49 | 0:42:50 | |
basically, senior guys shooting him. | 0:42:50 | 0:42:53 | |
I actually seen it. | 0:42:57 | 0:42:59 | |
You saw them being shot? | 0:42:59 | 0:43:00 | |
Yeah. | 0:43:00 | 0:43:01 | |
But the fellow had a balaclava on him, you couldn't tell who he was. | 0:43:03 | 0:43:07 | |
It wasn't nice to watch. | 0:43:10 | 0:43:12 | |
You said it wasn't nice to watch? | 0:43:17 | 0:43:19 | |
-No. -Do you think it was right that they were killed? | 0:43:19 | 0:43:21 | |
Yeah. They shouldn't have been there. | 0:43:21 | 0:43:23 | |
It's hard to say things like that but that's what it was. | 0:43:26 | 0:43:29 | |
When you got to the scene, what did you see, Cyril? | 0:43:47 | 0:43:50 | |
I'll not forget it until my dying day - | 0:43:50 | 0:43:53 | |
they were stripped down to their pants, | 0:43:53 | 0:43:56 | |
both men, and the steam was actually rising from their bodies | 0:43:56 | 0:44:04 | |
and we weren't actually sure whether they actually were dead | 0:44:04 | 0:44:08 | |
but we couldn't find any pulse. | 0:44:08 | 0:44:10 | |
How did you become aware that these men were army? | 0:44:19 | 0:44:22 | |
One of the officers I deployed from Woodburn Police Station, | 0:44:24 | 0:44:28 | |
an inspector, | 0:44:28 | 0:44:30 | |
came over to me and pointed out | 0:44:30 | 0:44:31 | |
that the car was... their car was burnt out. | 0:44:31 | 0:44:34 | |
When I went over and looked at the car, it was very clear to me that | 0:44:36 | 0:44:39 | |
although it was burnt out, there was armoured plating | 0:44:39 | 0:44:43 | |
in the backrest of the seats | 0:44:43 | 0:44:45 | |
and indeed, if I remember rightly, | 0:44:45 | 0:44:47 | |
there was maybe a serial number. | 0:44:47 | 0:44:49 | |
At this point, it became known to the security forces | 0:44:51 | 0:44:54 | |
that the two men were British soldiers | 0:44:54 | 0:44:56 | |
who had been travelling in an unmarked vehicle. | 0:44:56 | 0:44:59 | |
The guys displayed magnificent restraint. | 0:45:02 | 0:45:05 | |
They had Browning pistols, | 0:45:06 | 0:45:08 | |
14 rounds in the magazine, or 11, whatever. | 0:45:08 | 0:45:11 | |
I think the reason why the guys were so restrained | 0:45:11 | 0:45:14 | |
is because the army and the police, | 0:45:14 | 0:45:15 | |
it's hammered into you from the minute you start training, | 0:45:15 | 0:45:18 | |
do not use your firearm. | 0:45:18 | 0:45:20 | |
So what do you do? | 0:45:22 | 0:45:24 | |
What would they have had to do? | 0:45:24 | 0:45:25 | |
Would they have shot their way out? | 0:45:25 | 0:45:28 | |
Cos they would have ended up getting prosecuted by the British Army. | 0:45:28 | 0:45:31 | |
So they were in a no-win situation. | 0:45:31 | 0:45:34 | |
No family deserve to have to sit and watch... | 0:45:37 | 0:45:41 | |
They would have seen that on the TV... | 0:45:41 | 0:45:44 | |
First, they wouldn't have known who that was | 0:45:45 | 0:45:48 | |
but anybody that had sons in the army that day would have | 0:45:48 | 0:45:51 | |
been thinking, "Is that my boy? | 0:45:51 | 0:45:53 | |
"I hope to God it's not." | 0:45:53 | 0:45:55 | |
The two men were David Howes and Derek Wood, | 0:45:58 | 0:46:02 | |
who turned out to be corporals | 0:46:02 | 0:46:04 | |
in the British Army. | 0:46:04 | 0:46:05 | |
They were in the Signals Corps, a unit responsible for communications. | 0:46:06 | 0:46:11 | |
David Howes had only been in | 0:46:14 | 0:46:16 | |
Northern Ireland for a week | 0:46:16 | 0:46:18 | |
and was travelling with his more experienced colleague. | 0:46:18 | 0:46:21 | |
The press reacted in horror to their deaths. | 0:46:25 | 0:46:28 | |
For many, it seemed that the conflict in Northern Ireland | 0:46:31 | 0:46:34 | |
had reached the depths of depravity. | 0:46:34 | 0:46:37 | |
In 31 years of policing... | 0:46:42 | 0:46:45 | |
..there've been many things that one has been shocked about in different | 0:46:46 | 0:46:50 | |
parts of the province. That is probably one of the worst. | 0:46:50 | 0:46:55 | |
It was just the worst excesses of republican violence. | 0:46:56 | 0:47:01 | |
When you have young IRA volunteers all over this city, | 0:47:05 | 0:47:11 | |
all over the North and, as Gibraltar showed, | 0:47:11 | 0:47:15 | |
clearly across any countries that they could get access to, | 0:47:15 | 0:47:20 | |
where they're out endeavouring to... | 0:47:20 | 0:47:23 | |
You know, and that's what they're trying to do, | 0:47:23 | 0:47:25 | |
they're out trying to kill British soldiers, | 0:47:25 | 0:47:28 | |
they're out trying to attack them. | 0:47:28 | 0:47:29 | |
You know, it wouldn't have made much sense for IRA volunteers to think, | 0:47:31 | 0:47:35 | |
"Well, OK, we'll let these two go." | 0:47:35 | 0:47:39 | |
So it was more like a mob lynching? | 0:47:57 | 0:47:59 | |
So, just to clarify, if they had been shot cleanly, you wouldn't | 0:48:05 | 0:48:10 | |
feel uncomfortable with that? | 0:48:10 | 0:48:12 | |
Can you explain the impact that it's had on you as a family | 0:48:21 | 0:48:25 | |
that the corporals were killed at Kevin's funeral? | 0:48:25 | 0:48:28 | |
Well... we... | 0:48:30 | 0:48:33 | |
Kevin to us was a hero. | 0:48:33 | 0:48:34 | |
He ran after Michael Stone and that's how we looked at Kevin | 0:48:34 | 0:48:38 | |
and that's how we were honouring Kevin. | 0:48:38 | 0:48:40 | |
And then this happened and then because of it | 0:48:40 | 0:48:44 | |
we were sort of demonised and in the media we were actually called | 0:48:44 | 0:48:50 | |
depraved and despicable. | 0:48:50 | 0:48:53 | |
-And people were saying "savages". -Savages, you know. | 0:48:53 | 0:48:57 | |
And I thought, "We're not depraved." | 0:48:57 | 0:49:01 | |
We're brothers and sisters and mothers and aunts and uncles. | 0:49:03 | 0:49:07 | |
So, there was a lot of shame and blame. | 0:49:07 | 0:49:11 | |
Blame as if it was our fault. | 0:49:11 | 0:49:14 | |
Do you think that a crowd of loyalist mourners would have reacted | 0:49:16 | 0:49:20 | |
if the boot had been on the other foot? | 0:49:20 | 0:49:23 | |
If two republicans were, you know, come into a loyalist funeral, | 0:49:23 | 0:49:28 | |
they'd have got the same. | 0:49:28 | 0:49:30 | |
You're very even-handed, David, because actually in the media | 0:49:31 | 0:49:35 | |
what was suggested at the time, that it was evidence | 0:49:35 | 0:49:38 | |
that the nationalist community were | 0:49:38 | 0:49:41 | |
a kind of horribly savage community, | 0:49:41 | 0:49:44 | |
but actually you're saying it would have been the same? | 0:49:44 | 0:49:46 | |
No, it would have been the same. | 0:49:46 | 0:49:48 | |
It would have been the same. | 0:49:48 | 0:49:49 | |
You know, that's part of the media, they were demonising republicans, | 0:49:49 | 0:49:55 | |
but, you know, I have to be honest, | 0:49:55 | 0:49:58 | |
we were equally as vicious as republicans were | 0:49:58 | 0:50:01 | |
and that's just the way it was. | 0:50:01 | 0:50:03 | |
I remember watching a wildlife programme and it was hyenas | 0:50:14 | 0:50:17 | |
and they'd got their kill and they were around their kill | 0:50:17 | 0:50:20 | |
and they were just ripping this apart | 0:50:20 | 0:50:22 | |
and for some reason, that situation, | 0:50:22 | 0:50:24 | |
these two guys getting dragged out of that car, came right in my head. | 0:50:24 | 0:50:28 | |
I just thought it was such a horrendous thing to happen. | 0:50:31 | 0:50:34 | |
Sometimes I have flashbacks. | 0:50:36 | 0:50:38 | |
I can't be surrounded by people, | 0:50:38 | 0:50:41 | |
I can't have people touching me or being aggressive towards me. | 0:50:41 | 0:50:44 | |
I get this fear that I'm going to be abducted | 0:50:46 | 0:50:50 | |
and this is why I'm going to see a counsellor. | 0:50:50 | 0:50:52 | |
I'm still seeing them at the minute. | 0:50:52 | 0:50:54 | |
That incident sticks with me | 0:50:57 | 0:50:58 | |
and it always will until the day I die. | 0:50:58 | 0:51:00 | |
Does it still haunt you now, what you saw? | 0:51:08 | 0:51:10 | |
Aye, I still see the guys. | 0:51:10 | 0:51:12 | |
And I say prayers for people at night | 0:51:14 | 0:51:17 | |
and sometimes I say prayers for they two guys, aye, | 0:51:17 | 0:51:20 | |
because it doesn't matter who they are, | 0:51:20 | 0:51:23 | |
they didn't deserve what they got. | 0:51:23 | 0:51:25 | |
The killings made their mark | 0:51:34 | 0:51:36 | |
on ordinary Catholics in West Belfast, too. | 0:51:36 | 0:51:38 | |
What the corporals were doing there that day remains a mystery. | 0:52:22 | 0:52:26 | |
According to statements made by the army at the time, | 0:52:27 | 0:52:30 | |
they were driving through Belfast | 0:52:30 | 0:52:32 | |
from one army barracks to another at the time of their deaths. | 0:52:32 | 0:52:36 | |
The safe route would have been | 0:52:38 | 0:52:39 | |
to drive due south on the M1 motorway. | 0:52:39 | 0:52:42 | |
Instead the corporals drove down | 0:52:43 | 0:52:46 | |
the Andersonstown Road, straight towards the funeral cortege. | 0:52:46 | 0:52:50 | |
And the first thing we always said, and I always remember it, thinking, | 0:52:53 | 0:52:57 | |
"What the fuck were they doing there?" | 0:52:57 | 0:52:59 | |
How the hell did they end up in that funeral? | 0:52:59 | 0:53:01 | |
That's the first thing that went through our heads. | 0:53:01 | 0:53:03 | |
Is that because all of you would | 0:53:03 | 0:53:04 | |
have known that that area was out of bounds? | 0:53:04 | 0:53:06 | |
Everybody, the wee men on the moon would have known that | 0:53:06 | 0:53:09 | |
that was out of bounds and for the life of me, only these two guys... | 0:53:09 | 0:53:13 | |
And I still look back at that to this day, thinking, | 0:53:13 | 0:53:18 | |
there was no need for what happened, | 0:53:18 | 0:53:20 | |
but why the hell they ended up there in the first place, | 0:53:20 | 0:53:23 | |
I'll never know. | 0:53:23 | 0:53:25 | |
How would they have known which routes were off-limits? | 0:53:27 | 0:53:30 | |
They would have been compelled to find out what areas were off-limits | 0:53:30 | 0:53:35 | |
so that's the first check. The second check | 0:53:35 | 0:53:37 | |
would have been when they were leaving the base, | 0:53:37 | 0:53:40 | |
they should have been warned. | 0:53:40 | 0:53:41 | |
A lot of areas in that territory | 0:53:41 | 0:53:45 | |
would have been, from time to time, out of bounds, | 0:53:45 | 0:53:47 | |
so that would have been like putting your shirt on in the morning, | 0:53:47 | 0:53:51 | |
is that you always check and plan your route. | 0:53:51 | 0:53:54 | |
The army were very good at laying routes. | 0:53:57 | 0:53:59 | |
You'd get a route to go from A to B and that's the route you take, | 0:53:59 | 0:54:02 | |
so they know if something happens, where to find you was that route. | 0:54:02 | 0:54:06 | |
And I think it was a case of just the guys went wandering. | 0:54:06 | 0:54:09 | |
The British have told lie after lie after lie - | 0:54:13 | 0:54:17 | |
"Poor guys were in there by mistake." | 0:54:17 | 0:54:19 | |
No danger they were there by mistake. | 0:54:19 | 0:54:21 | |
They couldn't have got in there by mistake. | 0:54:21 | 0:54:24 | |
Everybody knew that funeral was on. | 0:54:24 | 0:54:27 | |
They would have known. | 0:54:29 | 0:54:30 | |
The British Army, biggest intelligence in the world | 0:54:30 | 0:54:34 | |
and they don't know there's a funeral | 0:54:34 | 0:54:36 | |
and the two guys drive in by mistake - don't think so. | 0:54:36 | 0:54:38 | |
Well, they were undoubtedly undercover, | 0:54:41 | 0:54:44 | |
they weren't in British Army uniform and they weren't, | 0:54:44 | 0:54:48 | |
they didn't have the standard GI haircut, if you will. You know? | 0:54:48 | 0:54:54 | |
They had long hair and | 0:54:54 | 0:54:56 | |
moustaches and stuff. Just... | 0:54:56 | 0:54:59 | |
Whatever they were at... | 0:54:59 | 0:55:01 | |
And who knows? Only their commanders would be able to answer that, but | 0:55:02 | 0:55:06 | |
I don't believe that they were up to any good. | 0:55:06 | 0:55:08 | |
They were plainclothes, I don't know if they were undercover or not, | 0:55:15 | 0:55:19 | |
I don't think anyone knows. But people find it strange. | 0:55:19 | 0:55:22 | |
What were two plainclothes British soldiers | 0:55:22 | 0:55:25 | |
doing to drive up the Andersonstown Road into a funeral cortege? | 0:55:25 | 0:55:28 | |
So, to this day it is inexplicable. | 0:55:29 | 0:55:32 | |
Someone suggested maybe the driver of the car, who was familiar with | 0:55:33 | 0:55:36 | |
the terrain, thought he would show off | 0:55:36 | 0:55:38 | |
but I don't want to do a disservice to that man's memory | 0:55:38 | 0:55:41 | |
or his family. I don't know what the explanation is. | 0:55:41 | 0:55:44 | |
But it was... | 0:55:46 | 0:55:48 | |
It was disastrous for all concerned. | 0:55:49 | 0:55:52 | |
I think it was you, Sean, that coined the phrase | 0:56:04 | 0:56:06 | |
-the "Battle Of The Narratives." -Yeah. | 0:56:06 | 0:56:09 | |
And that battle does seem to continue to this day. | 0:56:11 | 0:56:13 | |
It's still ongoing, because | 0:56:13 | 0:56:15 | |
someone once made the statement, and I think they were right - | 0:56:15 | 0:56:18 | |
it's a continuation of the conflict by other means. | 0:56:18 | 0:56:22 | |
-You know? -So the fighting's over but the fighting over the narrative | 0:56:22 | 0:56:26 | |
-continues? -Different type of battle. | 0:56:26 | 0:56:28 | |
So it's a battle around narratives | 0:56:28 | 0:56:30 | |
and people want to justify past actions. | 0:56:30 | 0:56:32 | |
I don't think loyalists and unionists | 0:56:37 | 0:56:39 | |
are very good at propaganda. | 0:56:39 | 0:56:42 | |
I think the republican movement are very, very good at propaganda. | 0:56:42 | 0:56:47 | |
Whose account is the true one? | 0:56:47 | 0:56:50 | |
Well, history will judge that | 0:56:52 | 0:56:55 | |
and I think there's a big attempt | 0:56:55 | 0:57:00 | |
by republicans, in particular, to rewrite history. | 0:57:00 | 0:57:03 | |
It's almost like the police were the terrorists and | 0:57:03 | 0:57:07 | |
the IRA were these wee men, just freedom fighters. | 0:57:07 | 0:57:10 | |
Who's going to be believed? | 0:57:12 | 0:57:14 | |
Whoever shouts the loudest. | 0:57:16 | 0:57:18 | |
I'm giving you a perspective which is undoubtedly a republican | 0:57:20 | 0:57:24 | |
perspective. I don't say otherwise. | 0:57:24 | 0:57:27 | |
If you talk to a loyalist, they'll give you a loyalist perspective. | 0:57:27 | 0:57:30 | |
If you talk to state forces, they will give you their perspective. | 0:57:30 | 0:57:34 | |
So who do we believe? Who should we believe, Sean? | 0:57:34 | 0:57:36 | |
You don't believe anyone. | 0:57:36 | 0:57:38 | |
You listen to all perspectives. | 0:57:38 | 0:57:40 | |
Listen to them all and try and understand them. | 0:57:40 | 0:57:44 | |
So, it's not a question of saying "That is the right perspective" - | 0:57:44 | 0:57:47 | |
none of them are right on their own merits. | 0:57:47 | 0:57:49 | |
They're all right on their own merits, if you know what I mean. | 0:57:49 | 0:57:53 | |
So, people need to understand what made people tick, | 0:57:53 | 0:57:56 | |
but the important thing is, having said that, | 0:57:56 | 0:58:00 | |
we all have to have a common | 0:58:00 | 0:58:01 | |
resolve that another generation doesn't have to go through what | 0:58:01 | 0:58:05 | |
our generation had to go through. | 0:58:05 | 0:58:07 | |
Whether you're a British soldier from Leeds or London, | 0:58:09 | 0:58:13 | |
or a republican from Ballymurphy or Clonard, | 0:58:13 | 0:58:16 | |
that's the important thing. | 0:58:16 | 0:58:18 |