Why Did Two British Soldiers Drive Into an IRA Funeral
Historical Notes
2,516 views
Two British soldiers drove into an IRA funeral in West Belfast in March 1988, and the IRA shot them both dead. Their silver car came head-on at the front of the procession on the Andersonstown Road, doubled back into the mourners, and was trapped between black taxis. One of the two men inside fired a single shot into the air. Then the crowd dragged them out. That same day the IRA said it had executed two members of the SAS. The Army said they had been there by accident. Two days later the government told the House of Commons that they were signals corporals on their way back to base at Lisburn, and that nobody might ever know why they were on that road. So what were two soldiers, out of uniform in an unmarked car, doing at the front of that funeral?
Just after midday on Saturday the nineteenth of March, the funeral mass at St Agnes' church ended, and the cortege moved off along the Andersonstown Road towards Milltown Cemetery. Twenty black taxis led it, packed five abreast. Behind them walked a piper, then more taxis, then family and friends carrying the coffin behind an empty hearse. Kevin Brady's sister Anne was among those carrying it. A crowd walked with the coffin and lined the pavements, and among them were press and television crews from home and abroad.
The road ahead was empty. Republican funerals usually took that route, and on those days traffic kept off it, either on police orders or by a tacit understanding in West Belfast.
A few hundred yards from the church, a small silver car came round a bend, past a row of shops, heading for the front of the procession. Witnesses put its speed at about forty miles an hour. Funeral marshals tried to wave it down. One man walking in the cortege said long afterwards that the stewards were only asking drivers to pull in to the side of the road, as other drivers did, and that if this one had done the same, nothing would have happened. The car went past them. It scattered the first rows of marchers, climbed onto the footpath to get round the lines of taxis, and turned down a service road. Then it came back out in reverse, at speed, into the funeral procession. Taxis from the procession blocked it in, behind and in front, and it could go nowhere.
As the car went by, an ITN cameraman was close enough to see the passenger's face. The man glanced at the camera, with its ITN sticker, and did not look too worried, the cameraman remembered, as if nothing really bad could happen with the press all around. Moments later the cameraman stepped back onto a low wall, about two feet high, to film.
Young men ran after the car. Some mourners screamed and ran for cover, and others ran towards it. Dozens of men surrounded it, beating on the windows and jumping on the roof. The stewards shouted for calm and tried to take control. Then a gun showed inside the car, and the crowd fell back.
It was the driver who had the gun. He leaned out of his window and fired once, upwards. For a moment the crowd held off. Then it came again. Someone smashed the windscreen with a wheelbrace, and others went at the car with iron bars and stones. Both men were hauled out of the car and into the crowd. As they came out, news cameramen photographed the driver holding a handgun. Then men from the crowd pushed the reporters back and put their hands over the cameras. The Observer columnist Mary Holland watched one of the two being dragged away. "He didn't cry out," she wrote, "just looked at us with terrified eyes as though we were all enemies in a foreign country who wouldn't have understood what language he was speaking if he called out for help."
In the thickening crowd, people were asking each other who the two men were.
9 Comments
Squaddies join up because they've nothing else going for them, what happens to mindless cannon fodder is of no importance.
Why Did Two British Soldiers Drive Into an IRA Funeral
Historical Notes
2,516 views
Two British soldiers drove into an IRA funeral in West Belfast in March 1988, and the IRA shot them both dead. Their silver car came head-on at the front of the procession on the Andersonstown Road, doubled back into the mourners, and was trapped between black taxis. One of the two men inside fired a single shot into the air. Then the crowd dragged them out. That same day the IRA said it had executed two members of the SAS. The Army said they had been there by accident. Two days later the government told the House of Commons that they were signals corporals on their way back to base at Lisburn, and that nobody might ever know why they were on that road. So what were two soldiers, out of uniform in an unmarked car, doing at the front of that funeral?
Just after midday on Saturday the nineteenth of March, the funeral mass at St Agnes' church ended, and the cortege moved off along the Andersonstown Road towards Milltown Cemetery. Twenty black taxis led it, packed five abreast. Behind them walked a piper, then more taxis, then family and friends carrying the coffin behind an empty hearse. Kevin Brady's sister Anne was among those carrying it. A crowd walked with the coffin and lined the pavements, and among them were press and television crews from home and abroad.
The road ahead was empty. Republican funerals usually took that route, and on those days traffic kept off it, either on police orders or by a tacit understanding in West Belfast.
A few hundred yards from the church, a small silver car came round a bend, past a row of shops, heading for the front of the procession. Witnesses put its speed at about forty miles an hour. Funeral marshals tried to wave it down. One man walking in the cortege said long afterwards that the stewards were only asking drivers to pull in to the side of the road, as other drivers did, and that if this one had done the same, nothing would have happened. The car went past them. It scattered the first rows of marchers, climbed onto the footpath to get round the lines of taxis, and turned down a service road. Then it came back out in reverse, at speed, into the funeral procession. Taxis from the procession blocked it in, behind and in front, and it could go nowhere.
As the car went by, an ITN cameraman was close enough to see the passenger's face. The man glanced at the camera, with its ITN sticker, and did not look too worried, the cameraman remembered, as if nothing really bad could happen with the press all around. Moments later the cameraman stepped back onto a low wall, about two feet high, to film.
Young men ran after the car. Some mourners screamed and ran for cover, and others ran towards it. Dozens of men surrounded it, beating on the windows and jumping on the roof. The stewards shouted for calm and tried to take control. Then a gun showed inside the car, and the crowd fell back.
It was the driver who had the gun. He leaned out of his window and fired once, upwards. For a moment the crowd held off. Then it came again. Someone smashed the windscreen with a wheelbrace, and others went at the car with iron bars and stones. Both men were hauled out of the car and into the crowd. As they came out, news cameramen photographed the driver holding a handgun. Then men from the crowd pushed the reporters back and put their hands over the cameras. The Observer columnist Mary Holland watched one of the two being dragged away. "He didn't cry out," she wrote, "just looked at us with terrified eyes as though we were all enemies in a foreign country who wouldn't have understood what language he was speaking if he called out for help."
In the thickening crowd, people were asking each other who the two men were.
This is what we were briefed on. This is what we were told. And we watched the full video, film from the Gazelle helicopter.
We were told one of them was a big timer, renowned for it, pushing boundaries, cutting corners. There were clear restrictions in place that day, areas to stay clear of because of a funeral. He didn’t check, didn’t follow the warnings, drove straight into it.
The instructors also said they’d probably have been alright if they hadn’t panicked in the car. That’s what made it all spiral.
Other accounts exist, different versions. This is what we were shown and told. They weren’t SAS they weren’t Intelligence Corps they were Signallers on what was known as Op Ajax that they did throughout Northern Ireland and it was basically checking masts it was a plain clothes operation and it was checking the masts to do with the radios the surveillance all that type of stuff.
Don’t cut corners, don’t ignore warnings, don’t let panic take over. We tell it like it is to keep the next lot safe.