The relatives had stated that the 8 ‘volunteers’ had been unlawfully killed in a ‘shoot to kill’ policy by the Crown Forces. On 21.01.81, an eight-man IRA gang murdered former leading Ulster Unionist MP and member of the RUC Reserve, James Stronge of Tynan Abbey allegedly in response to various loyalist attacks on nationalists. Dr Raymond McClean, former Mayor of Derry and civil rights’ activist, noted in his book ‘The Road to Bloody Sunday’ that “Jeff Agate was an honest and just human being of the highest calibre. There were a number of different reasons why the IRA decided to deliberately murder civilians, but a primary purpose was to achieve terror, shock and publicity. A Foreign Office minister has said the formation of a committee to study the case for IRA victims to be compensated is "welcome news". He was once more telling huge lies ‘for the cause’. Of that figure: 5 September Two killed and 63 injured when a bomb was detonated in the lobby of London's Hilton Hotel. Sort of a reverse ‘collateral damage’, a few stray military being killed when targeting civilians. McGuinness pretended in a most cowardly fashion that he had left the IRA before this war crime and knew nothing about it, although he had in fact authorised it. On 21.07.72, which became known as ‘Bloody Friday’, the IRA exploded twenty bombs in Belfast and, entirely predictably, murdered nine persons, injured seventy-seven women and girls and fifty-five men and boys. Unlike his cowardly murderers, Sir Norman Stronge had worn a uniform, had fought according to the laws and customs of war and had abided by Geneva conventions. On 02.11.71, the IRA exploded two bombs on the Ormeau Road in Belfast, one at a drapery shop and the other at the Red Lion bar, and murdered three Protestant civilians, John Cochrane (67), Mary Gemmell (55) and William Jordan (31). The Warrington IRA bomb victims Johnathan Ball (left) and Tim Parry Credit: PA:Press Association Who were the victims? They could have tried kneecapping captive soldiers, which would have removed them from front-line service, if not the military altogether, without usually killing them; and even on the occasions that such a method went wrong (such as Andrew Kearney, who bled to death after being kneecapped in 1998), one would have to acknowledge that they had at least tried to deal with a captive soldier humanely. This category includes individuals killed as a direct result of Provisional IRA attacks, but not those who died carrying them out, This list is incomplete: you can help by expanding it. On 26.08.72, two IRA volunteers, James Carlin and Martin Curran, were killed in a premature bomb explosion at Downpatrick racecourse grandstand. Thank you for keeping up the pressure to bring these criminals to justice. 27 August – Caterham Arms pub bombing The IRA bombed a pub in Surrey, injuring 33 people. According to the Conflict Archive on the Internet (CAIN), a research project at the University of Ulster, the IRA was responsible for 1,705 deaths, about 48% of the total conflict deaths. On 07.04.81, the IRA decided on another shocking civilian murder, this time of 29 year old unarmed Protestant mother, Joanne Mathers, who was supplementing her family’s income by collecting census forms. Also see Shergar, a famous horse that is believed to have been kidnapped by the IRA. To murder him, the IRA had to change its rules of engagement temporarily to suddenly make business persons targets in order to inflict more damage on the economy of Northern Ireland. by Denis MacEoin | RUTHFULLY YOURS, Will the British Public Vote for Antisemitism on December 12? On 08.04.84, two IRA gunmen attacked Catholic magistrate Tom Travers and his family as they were coming out of Mass. A member of an IRA unit who survived a deadly SAS ambush at Loughgall which claimed the lives of eight republicans has broken his silence for the first time on the 30th anniversary. In addition the Government paid their £105K legal bill! On 22.11.71, IRA man Michael Crossey, was killed in a premature bomb explosion in Lurgan, County Armagh. But they never tried. The IRA claimed afterwards that Mary Travers had been accidentally hit by a bullet that passed through Tom Travers. Change ), You are commenting using your Facebook account. Here I examine the IRA’s policy of deliberately murdering non-combatant civilians. Thanks for your ex posing Adams and Sinn Fein’so duplicity keep up the good work. It is shameful in the utmost that the leaders & colleagues of the perpetrators of these crimes have been placed into Government in Northern Ireland, by a serving, at the time, British Prime minister Tony Blair, & that now it seems to be impossible to remove them from office. The second gunman shot Tom Travers first in the shoulder, which caused him to fall, and then shot him five more times as he lay on the ground. These statistics alone proved beyond any doubt that the IRA’s bomb technology and protocols could never safeguard either civilians or its own volunteers. There is a God in Heaven and Vengeance is His. Omagh bombing, terrorist attack in Omagh, County Tyrone, Northern Ireland, on August 15, 1998, in which a bomb concealed in a car exploded, killing 29 people and injuring more than 200 others. How come he wasn’t put away by a sniper or locked up for long. The IRA members included two seventeen year olds, Joseph Fitzsimmons and John McIlhone, a nineteen year old, Martin Engelen, and Edward McDonnell. For good measure, they also murdered his 86 year old father, Sir Norman, former Speaker of the Stormont parliament who had fought at the Somme and had been awarded the Military Cross and the Belgian Croix de Guerre for bravery. A woman member of the IRA, Mary McArdle, was arrested nearby after the shooting and was found to be carrying two guns, a wig and a black sock attached to her thighs. Joanne died from her wound. As she was chatting to a householder in Anderson Crescent, Gobnascale, in the Waterside area, a masked IRA gunman ran up to her, grabbed at her census forms and shot her through the neck. By any stretch of the imagination, the deliberate murder of an 86 year old pensioner constituted a War Crime. Mary Travers, twenty-two years old, died in her mother’s arms. On 25.04.87, the IRA murdered Chief Justice Maurice Gibson, 74 years of age, and for good measure murdered his Protestant wife, Cecily, who was 67 years old. Change ), You are commenting using your Google account. ( Log Out /  Today’s generation who did not live in those turbulent times and support militant republicans would do well to understand their meaning of democracy and read the Green Book that sets out the objectives of the P.I.R.A and how the taking of life is some now justifiable. Perhaps worth emphasising that although the 1972 Donegall Street bombing killed two policemen and a UDR soldier, their deaths were by fortune not design: the part-time UDR soldier was simply one of the three ‘refuse collectors whose bin lorry was parked close to the vehicle containing the bomb’, while the two coppers ‘were attempting to evacuate the area’. IRA War Crimes – Deliberate Murders of Civilians, The Hooded Men – Victims or Human Rights Offenders? Wounded, she ran into the hallway of the house and the householder slammed the door shut to try to defend her. The dead were Protestants Stephen Parker (14), William Crothers (15), William Irvine (18), Thomas Killops (39) and Jackie Gibson (45) and Catholics Margaret O’Hare (34) and Brigid Murray (65) and two British soldiers, Stephen Cooper (19) and Philip Price (27).