UK prime minister Keir Starmer has apologised on behalf of the British state to the families of five Irish people shot dead in Belfast in 1972 by British soldiers who had “lost control”.
Starmer said recent findings from a coroners inquiry into the deaths, which included three teenagers and a Catholic priest, were “sobering”. The coroner found that the British soldiers had “overreacted” and at least four of those shot dead were unarmed.
“It is the duty of the state to hold itself to the highest standard,” Starmer told the British House of Commons in London on Wednesday at the outset of the weekly prime ministers questions slot.
“The government accepts and deeply regrets these findings, and recognises their gravity. On behalf of the government, I want to apologise unreservedly to the families for what happened and for the grief and trauma that they have endured since the tragic deaths of their loved ones.”
RM Block
Britain’s ministry of defence had previously claimed the soldiers were repelling a “co-ordinated assault” when they fired, which was rejected by the coroner in April’s report.
The July 9th, 1972, deaths – six months after Bloody Sunday – were among the most notorious of the Troubles and became known as the Springhill Westrock massacre, after the Belfast estates adjacent to where the shootings happened.
Margaret Gargan (13), David McCafferty (15), John Dougal (16), Patrick Butler (37) and Fr Noel Fitzpatrick (42) were all killed within minutes of each other that evening by two unidentified British soldiers who targeted them with single shots from high velocity weapons.
Dougal was running away at the time and was shot through the back. The other four were unarmed – the coroner said it was unclear if Dougal had been armed. The youngest victim, Gargan, was shot in the face as she spoke to her teenage friends.
Fitzpatrick and Butler were killed by the same bullet as they crossed a road. McCafferty, who was said to be a member of the IRA’s youth wing but was unarmed at the time, was shot in the back as he attempted to retrieve the priest’s body.
Tensions were high at the time as there had been sporadic trouble in the area following the breakdown of an IRA ceasefire, while two British soldiers had also been shot dead in the North earlier that day.
But the coroner found the soldiers “did not use reasonable force”. Two British soldiers, known as A and E, fired all of the fatal shots. The coroner found that soldier A killed four of the victims, while E killed the other.
“All fatal shootings were found to have been carried out by soldiers acting in breach of the ‘yellow card’ rules governing the use of lethal force,” said the coroner’s report. “None of the deceased should have been shot in the circumstances.”
Following the release of the report, the victims’ relatives said the “burden of blame and prejudice that has lingered for so long” over their loved ones had been lifted.
Separately, and a few minutes before Starmer’s formal apology, the UK government’s Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, Hilary Benn, told the Commons that he would raise with the Irish Government the issue of whether explosives from a Meath factory had been diverted to sustain the IRA’s bombing campaigns early in the Troubles.
Alex Burghart, the Tory shadow secretary for Northern Ireland, said reports suggested that much of the IRA’s early bombmaking materials originated from the Irish Industrial Explosives facility in Enfield.
He said Benn should insist that the Republic holds a public inquiry into the issue, especially as the State had pressed the UK over alleged collusion in the North.
“I will raise it with the Irish authorities,” said Benn.
