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IRA Assassination of MP Robert Bradford

The Rev. Robert J. Bradford, an Ulster Unionist Member of Parliament (MP) for the Belfast South constituency in Northern Ireland, is killed by Provisional Irish Republican Army gunmen on the morning of November 14, 1981, as he sits talking with constituents in a Belfast community center.

The gunmen, who are wearing workmen’s overalls, escape in a car afterward, killing Ken Campbell, a caretaker, as they leave. The people with whom Bradford had been meeting, most of them elderly, dive under tables for cover, and dozens of teenagers dancing nearby break into hysterical tears, but there are no injuries.

The killing is part of an escalation of IRA violence, both in London and in Northern Ireland, after the collapse of the prison hunger strike the previous month. The previous night an IRA bomb damages the London home of Britain’s Attorney General for Northern Ireland, Michael Havers. The home is empty and no one is seriously injured.

Bradford, a 40-year-old Methodist minister who is married and has a 6-year-old daughter, is shot several times, according to witnesses, and he dies almost immediately. His brother, Roy, who lives near the scene of the killing, in South Belfast, is at his side within moments. “But he was unconscious when I reached him, and he only lived for about a minute,” Roy Bradford says. News of the killing arouses fears of a Protestant reaction that could lead to serious civil unrest in Northern Ireland.

John “Jack” Hermon, the Chief Constable of the Royal Ulster Constabulary, issues an appeal to both the Protestant majority and the Roman Catholics to show “good sense and restraint.” He says security is being tightened in the province as a precautionary measure. He orders a wide-ranging search for the gunmen, who number at least three and possibly four, a point upon which the witnesses differ.

Bradford, who has been in Parliament since 1974, is an outspoken critic of the Irish nationalist guerrillas. He repeatedly calls for the reimposition of capital punishment in the province and for other strong deterrent measures.

With the Rev. Ian Paisley, another hard-line Member of Parliament, Bradford had planned to visit the United States In early 1982 to counteract the publicity of the IRA, which depends heavily on the money it receives from its American sympathizers. “There is a need for Americans to recognize that Ulster is not an occupied country,” Bradford says the previous month, “and that our political history is one of which we can be proud.”

The IRA, in a statement claiming responsibility for the killing, calls Bradford “one of the key people responsible for winding up the loyalist paramilitary sectarian machine in the North.” All twelve of Northern Ireland’s Members of Parliament – ten Protestants and two Catholics – are considered likely targets in the sectarian struggle that has claimed 2,100 lives in the province since 1969.

In a statement expressing shock and sympathy, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom Margaret Thatcher says, “We shall pursue with utmost vigor those who committed this wicked act.”

(From: “I.R.A. Gunmen Slay a Protestant M.P.” by William Borders, The New York Times, http://www.nytimes.com, November 15, 1981)


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Beginning of the Belfast City Hall Flag Protests

On the evening of December 3, 2012, hundreds of protesters gather outside Belfast City Hall as the Belfast City Council votes to limit the days that the Union Jack, the flag of the United Kingdom, flies from City Hall. Since 1906, the flag has been flown every day of the year. This is reduced to eighteen specific days a year, the minimum requirement for UK government buildings. The move to limit the number of days is backed by the council’s Irish nationalists while the Alliance Party abstains from the vote. It is opposed by the unionist councillors.

Minutes after the vote, protesters break into the back courtyard and try to force open the doors of the building. Two security staff and a press photographer are injured, and windows of cars in the courtyard are smashed. Protesters then clash with the police, injuring fifteen officers.

Ulster loyalists and British nationalists hold street protests throughout Northern Ireland. They see the council’s decision as part of a wider “cultural war” against “Britishness” in Northern Ireland. Throughout December and January, protests are held almost daily and most involve the protesters blocking roads while carrying Union Flags and banners. Some of these protests lead to clashes between loyalists and the police, sparking riots. Rioters attack police with petrol bombs, bricks, stones and fireworks. Police respond with plastic bullets and water cannon. Alliance Party offices and the homes of Alliance Party members are attacked, while Belfast City Councillors are sent death threats. According to police, some of the violence is orchestrated by high-ranking members of the Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF) and Ulster Defence Association (UDA). Loyalists also put up thousands of Union flags in public places, which further heightened tension.

After February 2013, the protests become smaller and less frequent, and lead to greater loyalist protests about related issues, such as restrictions on traditional loyalist marches.

Prime Minister of the United Kingdom David Cameron condemns the protests, saying “violence is absolutely unjustified in those and in other circumstances.” MP Naomi Long says that Northern Ireland is facing “an incredibly volatile and extremely serious situation.” She also calls on Cameron to intervene after a police car outside her office is firebombed with a policewoman escaping injury in early December.

The Police Service of Northern Ireland‘s (PSNI) Chief Constable Matt Baggott blames the violence on the UVF for “orchestrating violence for their own selfish motives. Everyone involved needs to step back. The lack of control is very worrying. The only answer is a political solution. Otherwise, this will eat into our ability to deal with drugs, into our ability to deal with alcohol issues, and deal with what is a very severe dissident threat.”

United States Secretary of State Hillary Clinton calls for an end to the protests during a trip to Belfast on December 7.

In September 2013, business representatives in Belfast reveal that the flag protests had resulted in losses totaling £50 million in the year to July 2013.

(Pictured: The Union Flag flying atop Belfast City Hall in 2006. The statue of Queen Victoria is in the foreground.)


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Death of Martin McCaughey, Sinn Féin Councillor & IRA Volunteer

Gerard Patrick Martin McCaughey, Sinn Féin councillor and volunteer in the East Tyrone Brigade of the Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA), is killed by undercover British Army soldiers in County Armagh on October 9, 1990, along with fellow IRA volunteer Dessie Grew.

McCaughey, from Aughnagar, Galbally, County Tyrone, Northern Ireland, is born on February 24, 1967, the oldest son of Owen and Bridget McCaughey. He is a boyhood friend of several of the “Loughgall Martyrs” including Declan Arthurs, Seamus Donnelly, Tony Gormley and Eugene Kelly, with whom he travels to local discos and football matches when they are growing up.

McCaughey is a talented Gaelic football player who plays for local side Galbally Pearses and is also selected for the Tyrone minor Gaelic team.

McCaughey is elected as a Sinn Féin councillor for Dungannon and South Tyrone Borough Council and at the time is the youngest elected representative on the island of Ireland.

Two months prior to his shooting, McCaughey is disqualified from holding his office on the council as he had failed to appear for a monthly council meeting. After his death, the Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) reveals the explanation behind his disappearance. He had been shot and wounded in a shoot-out with undercover British Army security forces near Cappagh, County Tyrone. He is then taken south across the Irish border into the Republic of Ireland where he is given hospital treatment and therefore unable to attend the meetings.

Ulster Unionist MP and fellow Dungannon councillor Ken Maginnis alleges that McCaughey had conspired to kill him while both sat as councillors.

McCaughey is shot dead on October 9, 1990, along with Dessie Grew, in an operation by undercover British soldiers. A secret undercover intelligence unit named 14 Intelligence Company, also known as the DET, are monitoring three AK-47s at a farm building in a rural part of County Armagh and are aware that the pair are due to remove the guns.

As McCaughey and Grew are approaching an agricultural shed which is being used to grow mushrooms and also thought to be an IRA arms dump, as many as 200 shots are fired at the two men. British Army reports of the shooting state that the two men left the shed holding two rifles. Republican sources state the men were unarmed.

McCaughey is buried at Galbally Cemetery in October 1990.

The family of McCaughey claims that he and Grew were ambushed after a stakeout by the Special Air Service (SAS). In January 2002, Justice Weatherup, a Northern Ireland High Court judge, orders that official military documents relating to the shooting should be disclosed. However, Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) Chief Constable Hugh Orde has the ruling overturned on appeal in January 2005.

Fellow Sinn Féin representative, Francie Molloy, replaces McCaughey on Dungannon Council after a by-election is held following McCaughey’s death.

In January 2007, the lawyers representing McCaughey and another volunteer, Pearse Jordan, apply to the House of Lords to challenge the details of how the inquests into their deaths are to proceed.

McCaughey’s father, Owen, seeks to compel Chief Constable Hugh Orde to produce key documents including intelligence reports relevant to the shooting and the report of the RUC’s investigating officer.

In 2010, a commemorative portrait of McCaughey is unveiled in the mayor’s parlour at Dungannon council.


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The July 2001 Belfast Riots

Major rioting and civil disorder break out in Ardoyne, north Belfast, Northern Ireland, on July 12, 2001. In some of the worst rioting in years, 113 police officers are injured in clashes which follow a July 12 parade. Police are attacked when trying clear the path for about 100 Orangemen returning from the parade to go along a main road passing the Catholic Ardoyne area.

In the seven-hour riot which involves about 250 nationalist youth, two blast bombs and 263 petrol bombs are exploded, while a dozen vehicles are hijacked, and 48 plastic bullets are shot by the police. Riot police also use water cannons. There are also incidents in east Belfast, Derry and Ballycastle, but the clashes in Ardoyne are by far the most serious.

The rioting comes just weeks after loyalist rioting in the area during the Holy Cross dispute.

The Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) says the riots are orchestrated by the Provisional Irish Republican Army, a claim denied by Sinn Féin, who believe the RUC’s heavy response escalates tensions. The incident also intensifies a row over the use of plastic bullets. Forty-eight of them are fired by the RUC in Ardoyne, and Sinn Féin claims fifty of them hit civilians, ten of which are badly injured. Chief Constable Ronnie Flanagan strongly rejects calls from the Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission (NIHRC) to halt its use in riots. Nationalist politicians see the ban on plastic bullets as a vital reform to make Catholics trust the police force more. Gerry Kelly from Sinn Féin says that the RUC “started the riot in Ardoyne. They are a sectarian force, using a very lethal weapon predominantly against nationalists and they should not be allowed to do so.”

A few days later another riot breaks out involving petrol bombs and acid being thrown by loyalists at police in north and west Belfast. Loyalists claim shots are fired at them from the Catholic Short Strand. A buffer zone is created by riot police in North Queen Street. Well-known Ulster Defence Association (UDA) members are spotted. From September 2001 the area sees fresh violence during the Holy Cross dispute and on the 23rd, with rioting also occurring in October and November.


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The State Funeral of Garda Tony Golden

On October 15, 2015, President Michael D. Higgins and Taoiseach Enda Kenny join thousands of mourners and gardaí in Blackrock, County Louth, for the State funeral of Garda Tony Golden. Garda Golden, a father of three, is shot dead on the evening of October 11 as he goes to the aid of Siobhan Phillips, who is the victim of domestic violence.

Among the thousands paying their respects are 4,000 serving and retired gardaí, over 2,000 in uniform. Garda Golden is remembered as a happy man, proud to serve, a role model for the community – and by his brother Patrick as a “big gentle giant.”

In his homily, chief celebrant parish priest Father Pádraig Keenan tells the congregation that the killing of Garda Golden was “cold-blooded murder.” He reminds the mourners that Garda Golden is the 88th garda to die in the line of duty. He says, “It is 88 members too many. He like all the others is mourned by the entire nation.”

“His murder brings to mind once again all the families and communities that have been affected on our island.”

Fr. Keenan says, “Garda Tony’s death once again reflects how north Louth and the Cooley Peninsula have been affected by the tragic history of the Troubles on the island of Ireland, and especially the murder of Detective Garda Adrian Donohoe, three years ago at Lordship Credit Union in Bellurgan.”

He says that too many hearts have been broken, and too many lives shattered. There is no place for violence in our society, violence is wrong, always wrong. He refers to Garda Golden as one of life’s gentlemen.

Fr. Keenan begins the funeral mass by saying that Garda Golden quietly let “his light shine in so many ways through his life in a very humble way. Amidst our sadness may we be thankful for the charisma of his beautiful but too short life.”

The stillness of the water across from the churchyard in Dundalk Bay mirrors the silence and sadness that has unfolded on everyone since the weekend, he tells the congregation.

“Tony was so proud to serve the community of Omeath,” he says. “As one person from Omeath put it to me in recent days, he was ‘our garda’, and to a person amongst his family and colleagues, all are immensely proud of Garda Tony and his selfless nature. Proud of everything he lived for, worked for and stood for. Tony Golden was a much-loved role model in our community.”

Symbols including a family photograph are taken to the altar in memory of Garda Golden. A club jersey and hurley from the Stephenites GAA club in his native Ballina, County Mayo, represent his roots and love of sport. A television remote control, a soft drink, a bar of chocolate and packet of crisps were offered to recall his cherished “time out.”

Garda Golden’s final journey begins at the home in the village of Blackrock he shared with his wife Nicola and their three young children, Lucy, Alex and Andrew. The funeral cortège is led by the Garda Commissioner, while thousands of gardaí escort their colleague into his parish church, St. Oliver Plunkett’s, for the funeral mass at noon.

Other dignitaries attending Garda Golden’s funeral are Garda Commissioner Nóirín O’Sullivan and Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) Chief Constable George Hamilton, as well as political representatives from all parties.

Fr. Keenan is joined on the altar by the vicar general of the Armagh diocese Dean Colum Curry, who represents the Primate of All Ireland, Bishop Eamon Martin. As well as the chaplains to the Garda and the Defence Forces, Bishop John Fleming and Father Gerard O Hora travel to the funeral from Golden’s home county of Mayo.

Screens are erected in the grounds and the village to relay the service to those outside.

Businesses shut down along the route as a mark of respect during the funeral. Roads around the village are sealed off for several hours. Garda Golden is laid to rest at St. Paul’s Cemetery Heynestown.

Golden is killed as he is bringing Siobhan Phillips to her home to retrieve her personal possessions. Phillips is also shot in the incident and is in a critical condition in hospital with her family at her bedside at the time of Garda Golden’s funeral.

President of the Garda Representative Association, Dermot O’Brien, says members of the gardaí from all corners of Ireland traveled to County Louth to pay their respects to their colleague. He says they are grief-stricken and numb.

O’Brien says everyone will reflect in their own way and that the realisation has struck that Garda Golden was murdered doing “a bread-and-butter type call.”

“They are going to ask themselves, those that attended the same type of call on Sunday that it could have been them. These are very similar calls that a lot of members did on Sunday, and they will sit back and reflect on what happened to Tony as they responded to a similar call.”

O’Brien says he had spoken to Garda Golden’s unit in the days leading to the funeral and, while they are coping, they are not well. “They are angry, grieving and disillusioned because today they have to bury a second friend, a murdered friend, a second murdered colleague.”

Father Michael Cusack also speaks of the pain and anger expressed by members of the garda force he met following Garda Golden’s death. Speaking on RTÉ‘s Today with Sean O’Rourke, Fr. Cusack says it is a very difficult day and week for gardaí. He says a lot of care needs to be offered to the members of the force and that there needs to be appropriate follow-up care given.

(From: “Garda Tony Golden ‘mourned by entire nation’,” RTÉ News, http://www.rte.ie, October 15, 2015)


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The Moira Car Bomb Attack

Eleven people are injured when a car bomb rocks the centre of Moira, County Down, on the evening of February 20, 1998. The injured include seven Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) officers, one a policewoman, and four civilians. The RUC Chief Constable, Ronnie Flanagan, who visits the scene the following morning, says that a warning was issued by a man with a “southern” accent in calls to the Maze and Maghaberry prisons. He adds that a vehicle, possibly the getaway car, was discovered on the southern route of the M1 motorway, suggesting that the attack may have come from south of the Border.

While unionist politicians blame the Irish Republican Army (IRA), this also suggests that the attack could have been the work of the Continuity IRA.

The car bomb, estimated at 500 lbs., is planted outside the local RUC station and explodes at approximately 11:40 PM, about ten minutes after the warnings are issued. Houses and pubs in the vicinity of the RUC station are evacuated. Local people described the explosion as “huge” and “massive.”

The attack comes just hours after Sinn Féin is expelled from the talks about the future of the province by the British Government because of recent IRA killings. By the following morning, no organisation has admitted responsibility for the bombing.

There are reports of the explosion being heard 20 miles away from Moira, which is a picturesque village about 20 miles west of Belfast.

The injured are rushed to Craigavon Area Hospital. None of the injuries are believed to be critical. Flanagan says the damage caused to the local RUC station is significant. A number of nearby houses are also extensively damaged. “One house was virtually demolished in the explosion,” says a police source.

The Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) justice spokesman, Ian Paisley, Jr., who lives nearby, believes that the bomb is initially intended for a specific target in the nearby town of Lisburn, but because of heavy policing the bombers set off the device instead in Moira. “I lay the blame completely at the door of the Provisional IRA,” he says.

In December 2013, a 43-year-old man is arrested in Moy, County Tyrone, and questioned about the attack, but is later released unconditionally. A 47-year-old man is arrested in Dungannon, County Tyrone, on May 7, 2014. He is taken to Antrim police station for questioning but is also released unconditionally.

(From: “11 injured in bomb blast in Co Down,” by Gerry Moriarty, The Irish Times, http://www.irishtimes.com, February 21, 1998)


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Birth of Robin Eames, Primate of All Ireland & Archbishop of Armagh

Robert Henry Alexander “Robin” Eames, Anglican Primate of All Ireland and Archbishop of Armagh from 1986 to 2006, is born in Belfast on April 27, 1936, the son of a Methodist minister.

Eames spends his early years in Larne, with the family later moving to Belfast. He is educated at the city’s Belfast Royal Academy and Methodist College Belfast before going on to study at Queen’s University Belfast, graduating LL.B. (Upper Second Class Honours) in 1960 and earning a Ph.D. degree in canon law and history in 1963. During his undergraduate course at Queen’s, one of his philosophy lecturers is his future Roman Catholic counterpart, Cahal Daly.

Turning his back on legal studies for ordination in the Church of Ireland, Eames embarks on a three-year course at the divinity school of Trinity College, Dublin in 1960, but finds the course “intellectually unsatisfying.” In 1963 he is appointed curate assistant at Bangor Parish Church, becoming rector of St. Dorothea’s in Belfast in 1966, the same year he marries Christine Daly.

During his time at St. Dorothea’s, in the Braniel and Tullycarnet area of east Belfast, Eames develops a “coffee bar ministry” among young people but is interrupted by the Troubles. He turns down the opportunity to become dean of Cork and in 1974 is appointed rector of St. Mark’s in Dundela in east Belfast, a church with strong family links to C. S. Lewis.

On May 9, 1975, at the age of 38, Eames is elected bishop of the cross-border Diocese of Derry and Raphoe. Five years later, on May 30, 1980, he is translated to the Diocese of Down and Dromore. He is elected to Down and Dromore on April 23 and that election is confirmed on May 20, 1980. In 1986, he becomes the 14th Archbishop of Armagh and Primate of All Ireland since the Church of Ireland’s break with Rome. It is an appointment that causes some level of astonishment among other church leaders.

Drumcree Church, a rural parish near Portadown, becomes the site of a major political incident in 1996, when the annual Orangemen‘s march is banned by the Chief Constable of the Royal Ulster Constabulary from returning to the centre of Portadown via the nationalist Garvaghy Road after attending worship at Drumcree Church. Public unrest and violence escalate over the next three summers as other parades come under first police and later commission sanction.

Eames, as diocesan bishop and civil leader finds himself immersed in the search for a resolution to the issue. Within the wider Church of Ireland there is unease as it is a broad church in theology and politics including within its congregations nationalists in the south and unionists in the north. Eames, along with the rector of Drumcree, has to navigate this political and social controversy and seeks political assistance to diffuse tension. Some bishops in the Republic of Ireland call for Eames to close the parish church, including Bishop John Neill who later becomes Archbishop of Dublin. He refuses to do so, believing this action could precipitate greater unrest and possible bloodshed.

Eames is, for many years, a significant figure within the general Anglican Communion. In 2003, the self-styled ‘divine optimist’ is appointed Chairman of the Lambeth Commission on Communion, which examines significant challenges to unity in the Anglican Communion. The Commission publishes its report, the Windsor Report, on October 18, 2004.

At the Church of Ireland General Synod in 2006 Eames announces his intention to retire on December 31, 2006. Church law permits him to continue as primate until the age of 75 but he resigns, in good health, at the age of 69. On January 10, 2007, the eleven serving bishops of the Church of Ireland meet at St. Patrick’s Cathedral in Dublin and elect Alan Harper, Bishop of Connor, as Eames’s successor.


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The Murder of Joseph “Jo Jo” O’Connor

Joseph “Jo Jo” O’Connor, a leading member of the Continuity Irish Republican Army according to security sources in Northern Ireland, is shot to death in west Belfast on October 13, 2000. Provisional Irish Republican Army (PIRA) gunmen are blamed for the murder.

The 26-year-old O’Connor is shot dead as he sits in a car outside his mother’s house in Whitecliffe Parade in Ballymurphy. He comes from a well-known republican family and is understood to have been involved in welfare work for “Real IRA” prisoners. Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) sources do not suggest a motive for the shooting, except to say it is not sectarian and they believe it is a result of an inter-republican dispute. Continuity IRA sources deny their organisation is involved and the killing is condemned by Republican Sinn Féin.

O’Connor had just left his mother’s home and got into the passenger seat of a car when two hooded gunmen approach on foot and shoot him at point-blank range. He is hit in the head and dies instantly. A relative who is in the driver’s seat is uninjured.

O’Connor’s cousin, who lives nearby, says, “I heard one shot, then a silence, and then four more shots in quick succession.” Tensions between mainstream and dissident republicans at the time are high in Belfast but without serious violence.

O’Connor, who lives nearby in the Springhill Estate, is married with two young sons. His grandfather, Francisco Notarantonio, was shot dead by the Ulster Defence Association (UDA) in highly controversial circumstances at the same house 13 years earlier. That killing is at the centre of a legal battle between the British Ministry of Defence and the Sunday People over allegations of security force involvement.

O’Connor’s killing is condemned by First Minister of Northern Ireland David Trimble. He calls on the RUC Chief Constable, Ronnie Flanagan, to state who he believes is responsible. “I understand a police operation is still ongoing and there may very well be further developments, but the question we will all ask is who was responsible for this murder.”

The killing is condemned by Republican Sinn Féin. A Sinn Féin councillor, Sean McKnight, says local people are “shocked” by the killing. “We call on those responsible for this deliberate shooting to declare themselves and spell out to the people what their motives are,” a spokesman says. “Local sources indicate the deceased man was associated with the 32 County Sovereignty Movement. Republican Sinn Féin has no hesitation in condemning this action and points out the obvious dangers that lie ahead.”

The Social Democratic and Labour Party (SDLP) representative for Belfast West, Alex Attwood, condemns the murder as pointless but says no one should “rush to premature judgment” about who is responsible. “The overwhelming mass of political and wider opinion is determined to consolidate the political and peace process and no words, no acts and no narrow politics will destabilise it.”

(From “Leading ‘Real IRA’ member is shot dead in Ballymurphy” by Suzanne Breen, The Irish Times, October 14, 2000)


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Birth of RUC Chief Constable Hugh Annesley

hugh-annesley

Sir Hugh Norman Annesley, retired Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) Chief Constable, is born in Dublin on June 22, 1939. He serves as Chief Constable of the RUC from June 1989 to November 1996.

Annesley is educated at St. Andrew’s Preparatory School and the Avoca School for Boys in Blackrock. He joins the Metropolitan Police in London as a constable in 1958. Rising through the ranks to chief superintendent in 1974, he attends the Special Course (1963), Intermediate Command Course (1971) and Senior Command Course (1975) at the Police Staff College, Bramshill, before transferring to Sussex Police as Assistant Chief Constable (Personnel & Operations) in 1976.

Annesley attends the Royal College of Defence Studies in 1980 and the following year returns to the Metropolitan Police as Deputy Assistant Commissioner (Central & North West London). In 1983 he becomes Deputy Assistant Commissioner (Personnel) and in 1984 is director of the Force Re-organisation Team.

In April 1985, under the new organisational structure, Annesley is appointed Assistant Commissioner Personnel and Training (ACPT) and in 1987 becomes Assistant Commissioner Specialist Operations (ACSO). In 1986 he graduates from the FBI National Executive Institute in the United States. In 1989 he takes up command of the RUC, despite the post being widely expected to go to Geoffrey Dear. He holds the post until his retirement in 1996.

Annesley is awarded the Queen’s Police Medal (QPM) in the 1986 New Year Honours and is knighted in the 1992 New Year Honours.


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Killing of PSNI Officer Stephen Carroll

stephen-carroll

Stephen Carroll, a Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) officer, is killed by the Continuity Irish Republican Army on March 9, 2009 in Craigavon, County Armagh, Northern Ireland. Carroll’s killing marks the first time a serving police officer has been killed since the Good Friday Agreement in 1998.

Two days prior to the attack the Real Irish Republican Army shoots dead two British soldiers outside the Massereene Barracks in Antrim, County Antrim. This period marks a significant escalation in the campaign by dissident republicans.

The Continuity IRA smashes a window with a brick knowing the PSNI would respond. At about 9:45 PM two police vehicles arrive at the scene. The officers are fired upon as they attempt to exit their vehicles. A gunman shoots Carroll from 50 metres away with an AK-47 while in his patrol car. Carroll is shot in the head.

The Continuity IRA claims responsibility saying their North Armagh Battalion is responsible for the attack and that “As long as there is British involvement in Ireland, these attacks will continue.”

On March 10 there is a one-minute silence in the Northern Ireland Assembly. Prime Minister Gordon Brown states that “These are murderers who are trying to distort, disrupt and destroy a political process that is working for the people of Northern Ireland.” Chief Constable Sir Hugh Orde calls it a “sad day” and says the gunmen are “criminal psychopaths.”

Richard Walsh, the spokesman for Republican Sinn Féin, a party linked to the Continuity IRA, says the killings are “an act of war” rather than murder. “We have always upheld the right of the Irish people to use any level of controlled and disciplined force to drive the British out of Ireland. We make no apology for that.” He also describes the PSNI as “an armed adjunct of the British Army.”

Deputy First Minister of Northern Ireland Martin McGuinness says those responsible are “traitors to the island of Ireland” and that “they have betrayed the political desires, hopes and aspirations of all of the people who live on this island.”