The Troubles in Moneymore
A total of seven people were killed in Troubles-related violence in or near the County Londonderry village of Moneymore, of whom six were Protestant and one Catholic. All were killed by the Irish Republican Army (IRA) except 71-year-old Protestant Samuel Miller, who was beaten to death by the Ulster Defence Association after witnessing a robbery. Of the IRA's six victims, three were members of the Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) and one was a soldier in the Royal Irish Regiment. The IRA's two civilian victims were a Catholic farmer killed by a booby trap bomb on his farm, and a contractor for the British Army and RUC who was shot at his home in The Loup. The contractor was Harry Henry, a Protestant businessman who had set up a building company with his brother which prospered by supplying bomb-proof windows and repairing damaged security bases around Northern Ireland.[1] All were killed in separate incidents except for two of the RUC officers, who were shot by IRA gunmen after a car chase. One of the officers, Kenneth Sheehan, had just returned to duty after being seriously injured in an ambush in Derry in 1976. In April 1978, a plaque was dedicated at his former school, Portora Royal School in Enniskillen, to commemorate his death and that of two other former pupils and RUC men killed in the Troubles.[2] Francis Hughes' involvement in the killings was confirmed in an IRA account of the incident.[3]
References
- ↑ Toolis, Kevin (1995). Rebel Hearts: journeys within the IRA's soul. Picador, pp. 52-53. ISBN 0-330-34243-6
- ↑ McKittrick, D., Kelters, S., Feeney, B. and Thornton, C. Lost Lives. Mainstream Publishing, Edinburgh, 1999, p. 714
- ↑ The Moneymore Escape
