“It was so terrible what happened. It shocked the whole country. It goes back to the fact that they [the Provisional IRA] didn’t recognise the State or our security forces. Disparagingly they called it the 26 county forces. They claimed to be the true Irish army, they claimed the title Óglaigh na hÉireann.
“To kill an actual Irish soldier from the actual Irish army was so awful that they wanted to do anything they could to take away their responsibility for what they did.
The death of Private Kelly left his wife Katherine bring up their four sons, David, Michael, Patrick and Andrew, on their own. David was aged nine when his father was killed.
Blaming victims – check
Harassing victims’ families – check
Escaping justice – check
Supporters downvoting news items about such incidents – check
great bunch of lads
>The official version of what has happened has been disputed by supporters of the Provisional movement.
Actually it was disputed by many, many journalists at the time including a series of reports in newspapers and Magill Magazine.
The fact the Gardaí Special Branch had the IRA unit surrounded on three separate occasions and each time they managed to escape, and on two of those occasions managed to take Gardaí and soldiers hostage, made the whole episode seem farcical.
The Gardaí also managed to shoot a civilian when they opened fire on one of their own cars. narrowly missing two Gardaí and wounding a man named Hugh Prior who was in the car and being taken in for questioning.
The Gardaí told reporters thst the Garda was killed by grenade shrapnel. It later emerged no frag grenades were thrown, instead the IRA were using stun grenades. So then they claimed he must’ve been shot.
The Gardaí never released the forensic report on the bullets which killed the soldier. In contrast, in the North such reports were usually released within 24hours.
Not surprising many questioned the official version of events.
And the fact they’re now saying “we showed some secret evidence to the family decades later so it’s all cleared up” doesn’t exactly instill confidence
They claimed he was killed by a grenade, then realised a grenade wasn’t thrown so refused to release information on how he was killed.
Then they claimed they had 3 items with Bik McFarlane’s fingerprints but when it went to court they said they had lost the items and charges were dropped.
They are now saying they are 100% sure it was a bullet from a gun that Gardai and army don’t use. Why didn’t they release this information before?
I’m not trying to defend the IRA, they probably would have fired back. But the evidence is questionable and the friendly fire story looks quite likely. The IRA acted in a way that could have caused loss of life but it seems that the state forces acted in a way that did cause loss of life and engaged in a cover up.
That was Christmas time cause I remember the soldier checking our boot leaving Ballinamore and seeing our cooked Turkey and Ham.
This has all the hallmarks of what journalists call a ‘non-denial denial’. The story at the time was specifically that the soldier was shot by the IRA only after he shot at them, but that the Garda recruit was shot by friendly fire.
In my opinion the IRA shouldn’t have been kidnapping anyone for any reason in the first place, so they ultimately bear responsibility for everything that happened. But that doesn’t mean that inconvenient truths should be kept from citizens as part of the State’s campaign against Irish republicans.
We’re adults – and the Gardaí, Dept of Justice officials and everyone else on the State payroll work for us – tell us the whole truth and we’ll make up our own minds.
6 comments
“It was so terrible what happened. It shocked the whole country. It goes back to the fact that they [the Provisional IRA] didn’t recognise the State or our security forces. Disparagingly they called it the 26 county forces. They claimed to be the true Irish army, they claimed the title Óglaigh na hÉireann.
“To kill an actual Irish soldier from the actual Irish army was so awful that they wanted to do anything they could to take away their responsibility for what they did.
The death of Private Kelly left his wife Katherine bring up their four sons, David, Michael, Patrick and Andrew, on their own. David was aged nine when his father was killed.
Blaming victims – check
Harassing victims’ families – check
Escaping justice – check
Supporters downvoting news items about such incidents – check
great bunch of lads
>The official version of what has happened has been disputed by supporters of the Provisional movement.
Actually it was disputed by many, many journalists at the time including a series of reports in newspapers and Magill Magazine.
The fact the Gardaí Special Branch had the IRA unit surrounded on three separate occasions and each time they managed to escape, and on two of those occasions managed to take Gardaí and soldiers hostage, made the whole episode seem farcical.
The Gardaí also managed to shoot a civilian when they opened fire on one of their own cars. narrowly missing two Gardaí and wounding a man named Hugh Prior who was in the car and being taken in for questioning.
The Gardaí told reporters thst the Garda was killed by grenade shrapnel. It later emerged no frag grenades were thrown, instead the IRA were using stun grenades. So then they claimed he must’ve been shot.
The Gardaí never released the forensic report on the bullets which killed the soldier. In contrast, in the North such reports were usually released within 24hours.
Not surprising many questioned the official version of events.
And the fact they’re now saying “we showed some secret evidence to the family decades later so it’s all cleared up” doesn’t exactly instill confidence
They claimed he was killed by a grenade, then realised a grenade wasn’t thrown so refused to release information on how he was killed.
Then they claimed they had 3 items with Bik McFarlane’s fingerprints but when it went to court they said they had lost the items and charges were dropped.
They are now saying they are 100% sure it was a bullet from a gun that Gardai and army don’t use. Why didn’t they release this information before?
I’m not trying to defend the IRA, they probably would have fired back. But the evidence is questionable and the friendly fire story looks quite likely. The IRA acted in a way that could have caused loss of life but it seems that the state forces acted in a way that did cause loss of life and engaged in a cover up.
That was Christmas time cause I remember the soldier checking our boot leaving Ballinamore and seeing our cooked Turkey and Ham.
This has all the hallmarks of what journalists call a ‘non-denial denial’. The story at the time was specifically that the soldier was shot by the IRA only after he shot at them, but that the Garda recruit was shot by friendly fire.
In my opinion the IRA shouldn’t have been kidnapping anyone for any reason in the first place, so they ultimately bear responsibility for everything that happened. But that doesn’t mean that inconvenient truths should be kept from citizens as part of the State’s campaign against Irish republicans.
We’re adults – and the Gardaí, Dept of Justice officials and everyone else on the State payroll work for us – tell us the whole truth and we’ll make up our own minds.