The Shankill Butchers Read online

  Much has been written about that period by commentators on each side of the religious divide. As with much of the history of Northern Ireland, each of the protagonists has a hidden agenda. The death toll for the two years tells its own story: 267 Catholics, 185 Protestants. The violence of the period recalls events of the past twenty years. The Pogroms unleashed prejudice which created its own barbarity. Sectarian assassination became a daily way of life and young and old, male and female, became its victims . . . the innocent suffered. After 1922 the UVF was rarely active and by the Second World War it had almost faded into folk memory.

  The advent of civil rights protests in the early sixties, and the fact that Catholics were beginning to agitate for political and social reforms, persuaded influential elements within Ulster Unionism that the UVF should be reactivated. That is the simplistic analysis, but it was in fact more serious and sinister than that. The early sixties saw the release of the last of the IRA detainees who had watched the failure of the IRA Border Campaign of the 1950s and the change in political emphasis within the ranks of the Republican Movement towards a more socialist policy. This revaluation of IRA strategy led to Republican involvement in civil rights issues and a belief that nothing was to be achieved from armed insurrection. There were also young men, not Republicans, within the Catholic community who had benefited from the 1947 Education Act and who were determined to mimic the tactics of civil rights protesters in the United States.

  As a result of this change in attitude within the Catholic Nationalist community the IRA sold its arsenal of weapons to the Welsh Nationalists. The prospect of a rebellious and truculent Catholic minority making demands was anathema to hardline Unionists who felt that the only way to deal with organized non-violent rebellion was to use force to eradicate it. However, Unionism was also changing. In 1965 the Prime Minister in charge of Northern Ireland, which at that time had its own parliament, was Captain Terence O’Neill, who felt that it was a time for change, whether in recognition of trades unions or appeasement of Nationalist demands. Terence O’Neill is remembered by many people to this day as the first Unionist politician who was determined to break the mould of sectarian politics in Northern Ireland, and to introduce an awareness of a need for change within his own party. Like many of the leading Unionists before him, he possessed the demeanour and voice of an aristocrat with a bearing which signified his English public-school training and his career in the British Army. His ancestry can be traced back to one of the O’Neills who was King of Ireland and to a Chichester who was prominent among English Planters in the seventeenth century in Ulster. His father was MP for Mid-Antrim at Westminster and was the first member of Parliament to be killed in the 1914–18 War. Terence was educated at Eton and later served as a captain in the Irish Guards in the Second World War, during which his two brothers were killed in action. In 1946 he embarked on a political career and was elected the Westminster MP for the County Antrim constituency of Bannside. In 1956 he was appointed by the Northern Ireland Prime Minister, Lord Brookeborough, to the post of Minister for Home Affairs. He proved to be a competent cabinet minister and a short time later he was made Minister for Finance, which he remained until he succeeded Lord Brookeborough as Prime Minister in 1963. At that time, Captain O’Neill, as he preferred to be called, was regarded by some of the new breed of Unionists, such as Faulkner, as benefiting from his Anglo-Irishness. In fact, although O’Neill may have had a renowned ancestry he was not part of the Unionist landowning class such as Brookeborough. When he became Prime Minister he exhibited a willingness to learn about and associate with Catholics and demonstrated what some of his colleagues saw as an ecumenical attitude and a dangerous trait O’Neill was willing to meet with Catholic clerics and to pursue a course of reconciliation which, at that time, was anathema to Unionism and to the Brookeborough tradition. O’Neill was not simply a Unionist but part of the liberal Anglo-Irish tradition. That did not suit the hardliners in O’Neill’s Cabinet; men such as Brian Faulkner, who felt he should have had O’Neill’s job and who did in fact later become Prime Minister. There were others, most notable amongst whom was the Minister for Home Affairs, William Craig. They were convinced that O’Neill was not the man to deal with the gut realities of Ulster politics and, as a consequence, there were plots and counter-plots to oust him. These plots were hatched in private, with Faulkner as the leading conspirator, but they failed.

  This was also the period when a fiery orator, Ian Kyle Paisley, was convincing many working-class Protestants that their Catholic neighbours were preparing to rise up and drive them into a United Ireland.

  Paisley was also bitterly anti-O’Neill. Like many others, he knew that O’Neill had been appointed by the elite ruling class within Unionism because he was part of that elite, but that he lacked the hard, uncompromising character of his predecessor, Lord Brookeborough. The former cabinet minister, William Craig, has confirmed for me that no one in the Cabinet was informed of O’Neill’s appointment as Prime Minister on 5 March 1963, until after he was given the job. The UVF was quickly re-established and one man was chosen to lead the organization in Belfast. He was Augustus (‘Gusty’) Spence, an ex-soldier whose father had fought with the UVF in the 36th Ulster Division. Spence was an ideal choice. He was born and still lived in the Shankill area of Belfast, which was the touchstone of hardline Protestantism and Unionism, its history mirrored in sectarian conflict with the Catholic Falls area which ran parallel to Spence’s birthplace. Spence, as he now readily admits, was a bigot, and therefore suitable raw material for the sectarian conflict of Northern Ireland. He was sworn into the UVF, not in Belfast but well away from prying eyes in Pomeroy in County Tyrone. He says now he didn’t know what he was entering into or who was pulling the strings. He claims that it was only years later when he was being interviewed by Special Branch detectives that he began to realize he was being questioned about a conspiracy when at that time he had seen himself as nothing but a mere foot soldier carrying out his duty. Spence says: ‘When I was interviewed by Special Branch they were not interested in shootings but rather conspiracies. I was puzzled. They knew what I didn’t know. It was then I realized that we should have turned our guns on those who were manipulating us, and not the Catholics.’

  But that was retrospective analysis. In 1966 Spence did what was required of him in a manner which was to have echoes many years later when the ‘Troubles’ began in earnest.

  In 1966 tension was high. The UVF bombed reservoirs and the State immediately blamed the IRA, but it was essentially the callousness with which the Shankill UVF, headed by Spence, behaved towards innocent Catholics which is of particular significance to this book. Spence admits he was born with the prejudices that afflict many people in Northern Ireland. He hated and feared Catholics and says he was uneducated and unable to think politically for himself. There is little doubt that he was willing to see himself as a soldier fighting for ‘God and Ulster’. We can see this from a statement issued by him and his associates on 21 May 1966: ‘From this day we declare war on the IRA and its splinter groups. Known IRA men will be executed mercilessly and without hesitation. Less extreme measures will be taken against anyone sheltering them or helping them, but if they persist in giving them aid then more extreme measures will be adopted. Property will not be exempted in any measure taken. We will not tolerate interference from any source and we solemnly warn the authorities to make no more speeches of appeasement. We are heavily armed Protestants dedicated to this cause.’ What this statement omitted to mention was that two weeks earlier, while the UVF was attempting to firebomb a Catholic-owned pub, a seventy-seven-year-old Protestant widow who lived beside the premises was severely burned and subsequently died.

  The UVF statement took on a more ominous character in the weeks following its publication. On 26 May 1966 Spence held a meeting of his unit in a room in the Standard Bar on the Shankill Road. A bar was chosen as a meeting place because it was familiar territory, though there may also have been an anaesthetic q
uality in the sense that drink was available. This was later to be a feature of many of the Butcher killings. However, on that evening in 1966 alcohol was not the primary reason for the meeting; the killing of a Republican was. Spence outlined that the target was a prominent man who was an IRA intelligence officer. The hit was timed for the following night at the IRA officer’s home in the neighbouring district of the Falls Road, across the sectarian divide. Four men were selected to carry out the killing. When one of the four was asked to steal a car for ‘the job’ he replied that he was a soldier and not a common criminal. Eventually it was decided that the UVF’s ‘official’ car should be used for the task. Spence provided the name of the intended victim: Leo Martin. The plan was simple. The four would drive around the Catholic Falls area in search of Martin and then to Baden-Powell Street where he lived. Leo Martin was not at home on the evening in question, nor was he seen walking around the Falls Road, but the UVF men were not to be outdone. They took the decision to kill someone else, anyone, as long as the victim was a Catholic. As they were leaving the Clonard area of Falls they saw a man walking along the pavement in an obvious state of drunkenness. That man was twenty-eight-year-old Patrick Scullion who had no connection with the IRA. Scullion was shot there and then and died three weeks later in hospital. His killing is significant because it symbolizes a mentality which is only too prevalent in both parts of the sectarian divide to this day. Spence expresses it with terrible clarity: ‘At that time the attitude was that if you couldn’t get an IRA man you should shoot a Taig1 [Catholic], he’s your last resort.’ This statement implies that within the Protestant paramilitary mind there was a crudely held belief that Catholicism, Nationalism and Republicanism were in some way inseparable.

  The shooting of Scullion did not have as much impact on the public as the events which took place in Malvern Street off the Shankill Road on the night of 25 June 1966. That evening Spence held a meeting of his unit to consider once again the killing of Leo Martin. Again, Martin was not at home and, after searching unsuccessfully for him in the neighbouring streets, the UVF set fire to his house. They returned to the Shankill, not to the Standard Bar but to the Malvern Arms, and joined Spence and some others for a drink. Spence and his men were despondent at not having succeeded in killing Martin. The events which unfolded in the Malvern Arms in the hours which followed were described in a statement later made by a member of Spence’s unit: ‘When we were in the Malvern Arms for about an hour four lads came in and went for a drink to the counter. The conversation came up about the religion of these fellows. Spence asked the company if they could be Catholics and then joined the four lads to buy a drink. When he returned to our table he said, “I have been listening to their conversation and they are four IRA men.” We had some more drinks and then Spence turned to us and said, “These are IRA men and they’ll have to go.”’

  The four young men standing at the bar were indeed Catholics but they were not members of the IRA and there was nothing to suggest that they were in any way connected with it. The Malvern Arms was familiar to them because it was possible to drink there after closing time and one among the four, eighteen-year-old Peter Ward, was a barman who knew which pubs in Belfast ignored licensing hours. Ward had been in the Malvern Arms on previous occasions. On 25 June, however, he was in the wrong place at the wrong time. Peter Ward’s naivety was to cost him dearly.

  After midnight Spence and three of his men left the pub and prepared an ambush in the street outside. When Ward and his companions left the Malvern Arms at 1.45 A.M. Ward was shot and fatally wounded. One of his friends, Liam Doyle, saw Spence in action: ‘I saw this man running after me. I saw flashes coming from him and he started to shoot into me. I was hit six times. I asked him why he was shooting at us as we were doing nothing. I pleaded with him not to shoot at me and shouted, “Please don’t.” He made no reply and kept shooting.’

  At the trial of Spence and his unit, Spence was also credited with shooting Peter Ward, though he may not have personally fired the fatal shots. He did shoot Doyle. There was general revulsion in the Protestant community at what had happened in Malvern Street, and the life sentence given to Spence was greeted with relief. Spence was not then regarded as a hero but that view would soon change. He had set the tone, if not established the equation: ‘If you can’t get an IRA man get a Taig, he’s your last resort.’

  Three years later Spence masterminded the growth of the UVF from his prison cell in response to serious civil unrest and sectarian warfare. The bigoted attitude which was so aptly symbolized by his actions found expression once again in both communities. It lay at the root of a politically and religiously divided community, waiting for events to trigger it, and in the late summer and autumn of 1969 killings and destruction enveloped Belfast in sectarian warfare. Painful folk memories were evoked in both communities and the IRA and UVF emerged as the defenders of their respective tribes. Young men were drawn immediately into a conflict which their mothers and fathers knew only too well would have inevitably tragic results. Romantic nationalism and romantic loyalism were given a new lease of life and many young men, some of them still in school uniforms, swelled the ranks of the paramilitaries. On the Nationalist side the IRA was unprepared and Citizen Defence Committees were established which were later to become the Provisional IRA. Likewise, on the Unionist side, the UVF was not at full strength and as a result it too set up Defence Committees. These Protestant Defence Committees would provide the genesis for the Ulster Defence Association which was later to become a sister organization of the UVF. Into the ranks of the junior wing of the UVF in 1970 (Young Citizen Volunteers) went a young man, Hugh Leonard Thompson Murphy, known to his friends as ‘Lenny’, who would express a power and an evil hitherto unrivalled in the UVF.

  * * *

  1 The word ‘Taig’ appears frequently in this book and it is worth briefly seeking to clarify it. According to the Oxford English Dictionary the word Teague (teg, tig) reaches back to 1661. The dictionary classifies the word as colloquial and defines it as the anglicized spelling of the Irish name Tadhg, which is variously pronounced teg, tig, or taig, and is a nickname for an Irishman. The date 1661 would suggest that the nickname was brought into English usage by the Ulster Planters or by soldiers of the English armies returning home. It is unlikely that the word Teague was used in Ireland by English speakers before 1661. Teague was in common usage in the eighteenth century and was known to Samuel Johnson. In Northern Ireland it was spelt Taig and used pejoratively rather like ‘nigger’ or ‘Commie’ in the United States.

  1

  The Making of a Killer

  This story begins in the late 1940s in Sailor Town in the docks area of Belfast. At that time the docks area represented Belfast in miniature because it mirrored all the political and religious divisions which were central to a sectarian city. The area, now redeveloped and consigned to folk memory, was then equally divided between Catholic and Protestant families, living in close proximity and often as next-door neighbours. The labour force from the docks was also divided and sons followed fathers into the part of the docks reserved for their particular tribe. Sailor Town was known to be a tightly knit district where outsiders were regarded with suspicion. The name Murphy was common to the area, though most of the families bearing the name were Catholics. An exception to the rule was the Murphy family – William Murphy, his wife Mary and their son William – who lived at 8 Fleet Street and were staunchly Protestant, making no secret of their religion or politics to their Catholic neighbours. William junior was a quiet, unassuming young man who had followed his father’s example and was working as a dock labourer. The young William spent much of his time at home and was not given to drinking or standing on street corners talking to other young men. His father would have preferred him to be more assertive but was pleased that his son was working and helping to support the family financially. William was aware that his surname often led to him being regarded as a Catholic and he would have preferred his mother’s ma
iden name, Carson. Taking everything into account, he kept a low profile and did not come to the attention of many of the people around him.

  In 1948, at the age of twenty-one, William found himself attracted by a young girl who visited relatives in a neighbouring street. The girl was Joyce Thompson and was five years younger than him. The prospect of William having a girlfriend five years his junior did not please his parents and their worries were soon realized when he told them at the beginning of 1949 that seventeen-year-old Joyce was pregnant. It was decided that they should get married before the child was born, but that they would not live in Fleet Street, where gossip was rife. This suited Joyce who decided they should live in her home at 28 Percy Street in the west of the city. They were married in the Belfast Registrar’s Office on 2 August 1949. Joyce’s father, Alexander, consented to them living in his home, which was situated between the two roads in Belfast where the two communities have fought each other from the middle of the nineteenth century; the Falls and Shankill.

  Joyce was far more assertive than her husband and, though five years younger than William, she was the more dominant of the two. She had no love for Catholics and the tradition of the Shankill area where she lived was hardline Unionism. From her house she was able to view the other side of the sectarian divide. Unlike the docks, the issues in West Belfast were always more intense. In essence, two warring factions lived opposite each other, each side riddled with suspicion, fear and prejudice. It was in this atmosphere and within one month of her marriage that she gave birth to her first child, a boy, in the Jubilee Wing of the Royal Maternity Hospital in Belfast. He was called William after his father but he was given no middle names. Life in the Thompson household was not what Joyce wished for her family, and within one year and with the arrival of a second child imminent they moved to 15 Penrith Street in the heart of the Shankill. Her husband continued to work as a dock labourer and, as always, was diligent, kept a low profile, and returned straight home after work, remaining there until he was required to leave again for work. On 26 August 1950 Joyce Murphy gave birth to her second son but this time the choice of name for the child was slightly more complex. It was decided to call him John but in recognition of her father and her family his full name was John Alexander Thompson Murphy. Within twelve months the Murphy family was on the move again, this time to the docks area, though not to Sailor Town. The street chosen by Joyce was North Thomas Street, several hundred yards from William Murphy’s parents, with whom the young couple retained little contact. On 2 March 1952 Joyce Murphy gave birth to her third and final child, Hugh Leonard Thompson. At this point it is worth examining why the Murphys moved house so frequently within a short space of time. I was told by people who had known the family that Joyce and William were very sensitive about people questioning them on account of their name and asking whether they were related to the Murphy families in the docks, meaning the Catholic Murphys. Each time such questions surfaced, Joyce Murphy would make a decision to move on. I discovered there was a further problem with which she and her husband had to contend at that time and which has remained with them as a family to this day. The perceived wisdom in the Shankill was that they were Catholics and were merely hiding the fact. Their neighbours believed that Joyce was certainly Protestant but that her husband was a Catholic and for this reason didn’t associate with neighbours and rarely left his home. While researching this book I was informed by two people who knew the Murphy family that William Murphy was in fact from the Lower Falls area of Belfast. My informants, themselves born on the Shankill Road, told me that William Murphy was from Sevastapol Street in the Clonard district of the Falls Road. I set out to investigate this claim and was astonished by the coincidence I uncovered. In the 1940s and 1950s there was indeed a Catholic family called Murphy in that street and the names of the four sons in the family were William, Alexander, John and Patrick. Three of those names were chosen by Joyce and William Murphy for their two elder sons, and the name William fitted the story perfectly. However, the claim was false but the coincidence was in itself significant in that Joyce’s childhood home in Protestant Percy Street was only 200 yards from Sevastapol Street. The similarities in the names combined with the reticent behaviour of William Murphy were sufficient to create a myth which would generate great resentment and bitterness within the minds of Joyce Murphy and her family and remain common currency in Protestant minds to this day. In such a small community the belief that William Murphy was a ‘Taig’ would always have created difficulties. Joyce Murphy knew the finger was being pointed at her family, if only in a surreptitious manner. Though veiled, such attitudes were menacing and made the family behave like gypsies, continually on the move. By 1957 they had moved again, this time back to the Shankill area, and some of the residents who had forgotten what the mild and introverted William Murphy looked like came to believe that another Mr Murphy, in other words someone using the same name, had moved in with Joyce. This erroneous belief was strengthened by the fact that William Murphy was becoming increasingly reticent and retiring in his ways.