{"id":262335,"date":"2026-01-01T22:00:07","date_gmt":"2026-01-01T22:00:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/262335\/"},"modified":"2026-01-01T22:00:07","modified_gmt":"2026-01-01T22:00:07","slug":"families-to-mark-50th-anniversary-of-kingsmill-massacre-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/262335\/","title":{"rendered":"Families to mark 50th anniversary of Kingsmill massacre \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

A roadside service at the spot where 10 workmen were murdered by the IRA<\/a> in Co Armagh<\/a> 50 years ago is to take place on Monday.<\/p>\n

Organisers said the event would be a \u201cpoignant\u201d commemoration on the \u201cmilestone\u201d anniversary of the Kingsmill massacre<\/a>, one of the worst atrocities of the Troubles.<\/p>\n

The Protestant men were shot dead on their way home from work after their minibus was stopped by armed men posing as British soldiers on the Kingsmill Road in south Armagh on January 5th, 1976. <\/p>\n

They asked each of the factory workers on board their religion.<\/p>\n

The sole Catholic passenger was told to leave and the remaining 11 men were shot multiple times. Only one man, Alan Black, survived, despite being shot 18 times. No one has been convicted of the murders.<\/p>\n

Many relatives of those murdered at Kingsmill have since died and a victims\u2019 group has called for justice for those who \u201cwent to their graves without ever seeing accountability\u201d. <\/p>\n

\u201cA lot of the first-generation Kingsmill victims, as with many other atrocities, have sadly passed away. Certainly parents, widows and widowers are mainly gone,\u201d Kenny Donaldson, of the South East Fermanagh Foundation, said.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor 50 years they have been denied justice, truth and accountability for a crime which was among the most depraved of the terror campaign.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis milestone year does put an additional layer of pressure on families. Their pain will be as raw now as it was at the time.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere isn\u2019t a peace within people.\u201d<\/p>\n

A separate religious service remembering those killed is to take place at Bessbrook Town Hall on Sunday.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur thoughts are also with the Reaveys, O\u2019Dowds and all other innocents marking 50th anniversaries at this time \u2013 all of these acts of terror were unjustified and unjustifiable,\u201d Mr Donaldson said.<\/p>\n

The victims\u2019 campaigner paid tribute to the \u201cimmense dignity\u201d of bereaved families and to Alan Black who \u201cdaily carries physical injury and psychological horrors\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey have not uttered words of vengeance or sentiments of wanting retaliation,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

In 2024, a coroner described the Kingsmill murders as an \u201covertly sectarian attack by the IRA\u201d, but did not name those individuals suspected of involvement.<\/p>\n

The massacre was \u201ca stain not only on the UK and Irish governments but moreover the local community of south Armagh\u201d, Mr Donaldson said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are those who remain within our midst [in the community] who have not been held accountable for their crimes against humanity,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Failings in the original police investigation into the atrocity were revealed in a scathing watchdog report<\/a> published last year.<\/p>\n

Eleven suspects were not arrested while crucial investigative opportunities in ballistics, forensics, fingerprints and palm prints were missed, the Police Ombudsman for Northern Ireland<\/a> found.<\/p>\n

The watchdog report was carried out in response to complaints made by relatives and by Mr Black.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A roadside service at the spot where 10 workmen were murdered by the IRA in Co Armagh 50…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":262336,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[41],"tags":[10613,9,10,13,14,6,6439,11,12,15,16,5,953,7,8,65,66,67],"class_list":{"0":"post-262335","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world","8":"tag-armagh","9":"tag-breaking-news","10":"tag-breakingnews","11":"tag-featured-news","12":"tag-featurednews","13":"tag-headlines","14":"tag-irish-republican-army","15":"tag-latest-news","16":"tag-latestnews","17":"tag-main-news","18":"tag-mainnews","19":"tag-news","20":"tag-police-ombudsman","21":"tag-top-stories","22":"tag-topstories","23":"tag-world","24":"tag-world-news","25":"tag-worldnews"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/115822095559686004","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/262335","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=262335"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/262335\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/262336"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=262335"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=262335"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=262335"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}