The Paras on the Shankill Road

The couldn’t-care-less attitude of many Unionist representatives to the interests – even the lives – of their “own” community has never been more evident than in their reaction, or lack of reaction, to the inquest on the victims of the Ballymurphy massacre. 

Not one of them stepped forward to highlight the cases of Richie McKinney and Robert Johnston murdered by the same regiment, the Paratroopers, on the Shankill Road on September 7^th 1972. We haven’t even heard an outburst of traditional whataboutery – Ballymurphy massacre, what about the Shankill?

Mr. McKinney’s innocence has never been acknowledged by the British authorities despite a document found in the Public Record Office showing that the Ministry of Defence had been fully aware from the outset he was an innocent man, offering no threat to anybody when gunned down in his own streets. 

In the absence of any other plausible explanation, we cannot rule out the possibility that the Paras killed him for fun. 

Another innocent Shankill man, Robert Johnston, was shot dead by the Paras the same night. 

If the paras hadn’t gotten away with the Ballymurphy Massacre in August 1971 and Bloody Sunday in January 1972, they might not have felt confident in opening fire on unarmed men on the Shankill in September 7^th 1972.

Mr McKinney, 49, was a manager at Mackies engineering. He was married with five children. He was shot as he drove slowly along Matchett Street, avoiding debris. He was going to pick up his wife from work. His brother Thomas, back from Canada on his first visit home in 31 years, was in the passenger seat. The bullet shot off Richie’s thumb as it gripped the steering wheel, fragmented, ripped through his chest and lacerated his heart.

Mr Johnston (50), a labourer who lived alone in Sydney Street, was seemingly drunk and waving his arms around at the Berlin Street/Weir Street junction when the bullet hit him. Sarah Anderson of Silvio Street told the inquest that he was shouting, “I walked these streets in my bare feet in the Thirties.” William Greer, manager of the Wee House bar on Berlin Street, said: “I heard him shout: ‘The meek shall inherit the Earth’. Then I heard a single shot.”

Statements from soldiers presented to the inquest were eerily reminiscent of paratroopers’ evidence to the Bloody Sunday Tribunal. Fierce rioting, gunman identified, aimed shot, gunman falls. The inquest ruled the killings unjustified. Ministry of Defence counsel didn’t challenge this view, but the Army stuck to its guns. Tory NIO Minister William Whitelaw blamed “Protestant extremists” indulging in “unBritish behaviour” for the deaths of the two men.

There was a flurry of protest in the days following the shootings, mainly driven by Shankill women. Hundreds picketed Tennent Street RUC station. A one-day unofficial inquiry at West Belfast Orange Hall concluded that there was a “desperate need for an independent judicial inquiry”. 

But that was about it. There was no continuing pressure from within unionism for any class of inquiry, nothing remotely resembling a campaign. The deaths didn’t fit into any approved narrative. Unionist leaders were making daily demands for rougher action against republicans. To press for justice for the Shankill victims, they reckoned, would have contradicted their position.

Given events in their “own” areas, nationalist politicians had no compelling interest in campaigning for justice for Mr McKinney and Mr Johnston. They may have been well-respected in life, but there were few to speak up for them in death.It wasn’t until Seamus Treacy, representing a number of the Bloody Sunday families, pressed the Saville Tribunal to take the Shankill killings into account, that the incident again figured in the public arena. The tribunal rejected Treacy’s application.

The Paras will have felt they could get away with killing in Derry because they’d gotten away with it in Ballymurphy. And they will have felt at ease taking aim at Mr McKinney and Mr Johnston because they’d gotten away with it in Derry. (Or so they thought.) 

In averting their eyes from previous Para killings, unionist parties facilitated the Shankill killings. Eager to do down the other side, they let their “own” side down. Unionist leaders, including Shankill representatives, pressed by Bloody Sunday families to take up the case of Mr McKinney and Mr Johnston replied: “You don’t understand the Protestant people.” 

Bloody Sunday shooters Soldier F and Soldier J were among those who opened fire on Mr. McKinney and Mr. Johnston.  The Parachute Regiment can be said to have proven its non-sectarian credentials in these incidents, demonstrating that they’d cheerfully kill anybody who strayed into their gunsights without regard to religion, politics or any other aspect of life and confident that they’d never be held to account.

Most people with a degree of common-sense cynicism will believe that the chances of any Para serving a day in prison for any of these killings are as near nil as makes no difference. 

For the British authorities, justice is an abstract concept.