'Mum couldn't understand why they celebrated after shooting him in the back'
Ivan Little, Sunday Life, July 20th, 2025
PROVISIONALS 'DETERMINED TO PUSH PROTESTANTS FROM BORDER' AUTHOR OF NEW BOOK ACCUSING IRA OF ETHNIC CLEANSING STILL HAUNTED BY HIS BROTHER'S MURDER
A former Fermanagh policeman whose brother was murdered by the IRA has told how the killers' celebrations broke his mother's heart.
Ken Funston said his mum saw terrorists cheering and waving rifles after shooting Ronnie in the back at a border farm in an attack believed to have been led by Maze escapee Kieran Fleming.
The gang responsible for the murder was behind a string of deaths in Fermanagh, where a total of 116 people were killed, mostly by the Provisional IRA, during the Troubles.
“My mother couldn't fathom how someone could murder him and then run up the field, celebrating,” Mr Funston told Sunday Life.
“Talking about Ronnie, who lived at home, distressed her so much that we couldn't really do it in her presence.
“I was consumed by a mixture of emotions — sadness, anger and confusion. Why would they want to murder Ronnie, a quiet, unassuming man who lived for his farming and his family? The answer: to force the family off the farm.
“A level of controlled anger continues due to his murderers being lauded by republicans, and Michelle O'Neill declaring they had no other choice.”
Mr Funston has written a book, The Northern Ireland Conflict on the Margins of History: Protestant Memory on the Border, with Dr Cillian McGrattan in a bid to counter “the attempts by republicans to revise the narrative of the IRA's bloody campaign”.
He said he wanted to challenge Ms O'Neill's claim there was no alternative to violence in the Troubles.
Ambushed
Mr Funston believes his 28-year-old brother, who had left the UDR eight years before he was ambushed near Pettigo in March 1984 as he fed silage to his cattle, was killed because he was a Protestant, a view echoed at his funeral by the minister.
In the aftermath of the murder, former Ulster Unionist MP Ken Maginnis said Ronnie Funston was a victim of the “IRA's genocide along the frontier”.
Mr Funston said the family had learned that information on his brother's movements had been passed to the IRA by a Catholic man who was regarded as a friend, which exacerbated the heartbreak.
After retiring from the police in 2014, he worked for the South East Fermanagh Foundation victims' group as an advocacy manager.
“I started meeting people from not just Fermanagh but all over the province,” Mr Funston recalled.
“I only realised fully then just how many people had been traumatised and had stories to tell, particularly in the south of the county.”
The new book took years to complete, with the foundations being laid during Mr Funston's studies for an MA in violence, terrorism and security, followed by a PhD in 2020.
Professors at his university suggested he turn his thesis on the impact of the Troubles in Fermanagh into a book, and he agreed, collaborating with Dr McGrattan.
Mr Funston had already held numerous interviews with victims, former members of the security forces and politicians for his PhD studies.
Several families he spoke to suffered multiple tragedies. Brothers and part-time UDR soldiers Ronnie, Cecil and Jimmy Graham were killed in separate IRA attacks in the 1980s, and a sister, Hilary who was also a member of the UDR, died after she was hit by a car at a checkpoint.
Mr Funston (left) accepted the book would be a hard read for many but said it was important to have a record of what really happened, rather than the “revisionist theatre we have now”.
He continued: “As for what Michelle O'Neill said about no alternatives, there was an alternative to shooting my brother in the back and running away cheering, and there was an alternative to putting bombs in vehicles and forcing people to drive them to checkpoints.
“But now it seems that a large percentage of the nationalist population believe there was no alternative. That's the sad state of affairs we have got to.
“Seamus Mallon and John Hume would never have believed there was no alternative.”
Mr Funston said he believes the IRA was intent on the ethnic cleansing of Protestants from border areas.
He pointed to the decline of the Protestant population in places such as Rosslea, Newtownbutler and Kinawley, which were “hit really hard” by IRA units coming from Leitrim, Cavan and Monaghan, as evidence for his claim.
The book contains photographs of houses along the border abandoned by Protestant families many years ago.
Mr Funston said: “There were undoubtedly concerted attempts to move Protestants away from the border.
“You look now at Newtownbutler, which at the start of the Troubles was 40 per cent unionist, and now there's very few still there, just like Rosslea.”
The cover of the book includes a picture of a recent Remembrance Day parade through of Tullyhommon, a village near the Funston family home.
Consequences
In 1987, on the same day as the Enniskillen Poppy Day bomb, the IRA left an even bigger device in Tullyhommon at a meeting point for a parade which mainly included members of the Boys and Girls Brigade.
It was claimed the bomb failed to explode after a passing tractor severed the command wire, but that explanation has never convinced Mr Funston.
He instead believes the IRA was intent on wiping out a generation of young Protestants.
Mr Funston said: “One incident was one too many in my eyes.
“A brother, a sister and five or six of my nephews and nieces were in that parade. If it had exploded, the consequences would have been horrendous.”
While the IRA was responsible for most of the killings in Fermanagh during the Troubles, others were attributed to members of the security forces, separate republican groups and loyalist paramilitaries.
During his research, a member of the Orange Order told Mr Funston he had been approached by UDA men from Belfast after the Enniskillen bomb.
The unnamed man went on: “They said they wanted to help us. I took that as meaning they wanted to carry out terrorist acts, and that would have made us no better than the IRA.
“There had been a few cases of loyalist terrorism in the county in the early '70s, and we wanted none of that. I made it clear they were not welcome in Fermanagh and sent them back up the road.
“We believed in the rule of law and that God would look after us.”
The Northern Ireland Conflict on the Margins of History: Protestant Memory on the Border, published by Berghahn Books, is available at half price for a limited time. To buy your copy, visit www.berghahnbooks.com/title/FunstonNorthern and use the code 'FUNS9919' at the checkout.
One of last kneecapping victims says ‘killing triggered the PTSD I had been trying to keep down'
David O’Dornan, Sunday Life, July 20th, 2025
TERROR VICTIM TURNED HER LIFE AROUND AFTER DODGING DEATH WOMAN SHOT NINE TIMES BY THE UVF THREW HER PHONE AWAY AND REFUSED TO WORK AFTER IAN OGLE MURDER BROUGHT MEMORIES OF HER ATTACK RUSHING BACK
A woman shot nine times by the UVF has told how she suffered PTSD after the terror gang murdered Ian Ogle in east Belfast in 2019.
Appearing on The Working Class podcast, Jemma McGrath admitted the 2013 shooting was to do with drugs, and said she believed she had come face-to-face with one of her attackers at a school play.
As she showed X-rays of her injuries, the hosts said, just like rapper 50 Cent, she had been shot nine times. Jemma replied: “I know, I'm 50 pence.”
She continued: “I had just turned 24. (They shot me) nine times, five times in (the left) leg, twice (in the left arm) — you can see the scar there — then once in this (right) leg and once in the stomach.
Wheelchair
“This sounds really strange, but it's like it's a burning (and) a smell at the same time.
“My leg just swelled like f***. The very last one... if they hadn't have done that last one, I would have probably been up walking within a day or two.
“It was probably just as well because I'd have been a cocky wee f****r with a mouth on me. I was angry at the world and running about, thinking I was a big girl.
“I was in a wheelchair with my leg out in front of me for three months.
“If they hadn't done that very last one, if they had stopped and not come back and done that one... scumbags, acting the big boy. (They) got me through the femur, and that was the one.”
Jemma told hosts Gavin and Liambo that gunmen from the East Belfast UVF shot her with a 9mm pistol.
“The first one was right in my kneecap, and (then the firing) went right up into my groin,” she said.
“What it looked like to me was that he held the gun properly and kneecapped me properly, and then it was like as if he handed the gun to his mate, who s*** himself.
“If you look at me, the way it went (was) one, two, three, four, five, like right up the side of me. It was as if he lost control of the gun.
“Then they couldn't really see how many times they'd shot me as well because it was dark and I wasn't going like 'Ah' or none of that there.
“It just got to the point where I was like 'Right, that's e-f***ing-nough.
“Do you want me to tell you the really crazy part? Because of the stress of everything happening beforehand, because I was hearing all this word on the street... you know what it's like. That was really stressful. So the weirdest thing was, as soon as it was over, see the relief?
“I was like 'Right, this is over now' because I knew so many people who'd been shot. Once you've been shot, that's it over and done with usually. You just get on with your life.
“So, I was just holding my arm over my stomach and going 'Just think positive, just think positive. It was really strange. Somebody asked me one time years later 'Did you think you were going to die?' And I was like 'Nah, not for one second'.
“This is the another thing too. They (paramilitaries) are starting to all squeal on each other now. See the power of social media? They're sending round all these wee WhatsApps with faces on rats' bodies and they're squealing.
“I think there was maybe one after me... but I was like the first girl (to be shot) in 20 years. They're busting to squeal on themselves because I won't do it.”
Jemma turned her life around to become an award-winning businesswoman with her beauty salon Belfast Brows and Lips.
She won a Prince's Trust award in 2018 and met the now King Charles at a royal reception in London a year later.
Jemma admitted she had a “bit of a breakdown” after launching her new career “straight after I got shot”.
She explained: “For a long, long time, it was just ego driving me and I didn't even know it. It was just 'I'll prove you wrong'.
“I was pretending to do better than what I was even doing, because I knew they were watching, just to annoy them.
“But it was stealing from my joy, do you know what I mean? That's whenever I finally ended up having a meltdown, and then after that, it didn't matter no more. It was just like something just clicked.
“I was like something not wise for a couple of weeks. It must have been just all the pent-up f***ing emotion.
“Do you know actually when it happened from? Whenever they killed that fella Ian Ogle... that snowballed me.
“I got a phonecall, and that triggered something in me that I was trying to keep it down. It was PTSD.
“This is how it works. You get like a wee trigger, and then if you don't deal with it, it will just snowball and snowball and will turn into an episode of psychosis nearly.
“This was probably the first time that I'd ever done that. I'd had wee weird ones where I got paranoid and stuff like that, but this was like another (level).
“So, I was just like a real nutjob for a couple of weeks. I got rid of my phone and all and wasn't going back to work. I just lost the plot.
“Do you know how long I went without a phone for? A year. I hit my phone with a hammer and f***ed it away.”
Stabbed
Five men were convicted of the murder of Ian Ogle in east Belfast. The 45-year-old was beaten and stabbed a total of 11 times near his home on Cluan Place in January 2019.
None of the killers were linked to the gun attack on Jemma in Lord Street Mews, off the Beersbridge Road, but she reckons she may have been in the presence of her attackers since the shooting.
“I think one of them might have got up and walked out of his own kid's school play because I was there,” she said.
Jemma refused to duck any of the hosts' harder questions, including about why she was shot.
She said: “It was to do with drugs. I was a well-known for (being) a party girl whenever I was younger.
“Now I know I was taking drugs to avoid childhood trauma s***, but I thought then I just loved taking drugs and just partying.
“I was just always flat out partying, just as much as I could. All of us were like that. It was just what we did. Do you know what I mean? It was just my way of life, it was all that I knew. To be quite honest, everybody else was exactly the f***ing same.
“It's not to say that I didn't know what I was doing.
“I think everybody's hands are dirty, and I hold my hands up for my part in it.
“That's why I've changed, but some people haven't changed at all. They're actually f*****g worse, and they're still pointing their fingers at other people.”
Jemma showed presenter Gavin and Liambo a scan with a bullet still lodged inside her body which could have paralysed her and prevented her from having children.
She said: “I always knew there was a bullet in my stomach, but naively, I just thought it was like lodged in a bit of muscle.
“It turned out years later, after I went to chiropractor, that this bullet had gone through my stomach and was (close) my spine.
“Because my spine is tight at the bottom, it actually went right past my spine. So, it's actually on the other side of my body. It went right through me.
“They didn't go in and get it because of the type of metal it was. It was safer to leave it in there than go in and try and get it because all my internal organs are in there. It was just left there and it has never caused me any bother.
“Faith is becoming more important, and people are embracing it more. Mine is massive to me, so it is. I love it.
“I think once you hit rock bottom, that's when it's more important than anything.
“I think my whole story, the whole story coming together now, I realise that this is part of it all. This is part of the process and there's a message in this.”
To watch the full interview with Jemma, visit www.youtube.com/@TheWorkingClassPodcast.x
Loyalist's UVF flag stunt puts reputation of cross-community charity at risk
Ciaran Barnes, Sunday Life, July 20th, 2025
COMMUNITY WORKER CARRIED BANNER OF PROHIBITED ORGANISATION AT PARADE
A community worker at a £7m government funded peace project was pictured carrying a UVF flag at a loyalist parade.
Mark Vinton was recorded marching with the purple standard at last weekend's Shankill Cultural Festival in Belfast.
Swinging his arm, the loyalist led a flute band as it walked in formation.
Images from the event have been passed to funders who now fear for the reputation of The Black Mountain Shared Space (BMSS) charity, which had no involvement in last weekend's parade.
The group, based on the interface between the unionist Springmartin and nationalist New Barnsley areas of west Belfast, was handed £7m of EU peace cash last year.
This allowed it to redevelop the old Finlay's Factory site into an impressive new building to be used for cross-community cultural events.
Dedicated community worker
Vinton works with the Black Mountain Shared Space and was present at the high-profile launch of its new multimillion-pound premises last September.
He was pictured sitting next to former IRA leader Sean 'Spike' Murray, Sinn Fein councillor Steven Corr and the PUP's Billy Hutchinson.
Sources who provided Sunday Life with a recording of Vinton carrying the UVF flag last weekend said his actions would damage the BMSS's reputation.
One revealed: “No one has a problem with Mark Vinton's politics. Loyalists and republicans work together successfully in the building.
“It's a different matter though when you are pictured carrying a UVF flag, which is an illegal paramilitary organisation, at a parade.
“This puts the Black Mountain Shared Space in a difficult position because questions are now going to be asked as to why someone is working here who openly supports a paramilitary organisation.”
Although contacted the BMSS did not respond to Sunday Life phone calls or emails about the matter.
Mark Vinton, who is from the Springmartin estate, is a prominent Shankill Road loyalist and a close friend of jailed UVF gunrunner Winkie Irvine.
He often accompanied his good pal to court before he was jailed in June for possessing firearms and ammunition.
According to his online biography, Vinton is also a founding member of the Blackmountain Shard Space Initiative, a forerunner to the BMSS.
He also sat on the Belfast Police and Community Safety Partnership and worked with the now defunct Ex-Prisoner Interpretative Centre, which assisted former UVF inmates.
In 2013, Sunday Life pictured Vinton with senior UVF members Winkie Irvine, Joe McCaw and Harry Stockman leading a UVF commemoration parade through Belfast. At the time he was employed by the Belfast Conflict Resolution Consortium, an amalgamation of republicans and loyalists who worked together to reduce violence at interfaces and who became known as the 'blue bibs'.
‘Yes’ campaigner for Good Friday Agreement says ‘I think we called it wrong’
In 2023, on the 25th anniversary of the Good Friday Agreement, Vinton spoke to The Detail website about his recollection of events leading up to the deal.
He talked about how he had campaigned for a 'yes' vote and had been opposed by members of the DUP.
“(I saw) people shouting and near coming to blows at times, (saying) 'Youse are traitors, you're selling out the Union',” he said.
“Some people saw you as a sell-out, and probably still do to this day.
“On the side of unionism, loyalism did all the heavy lifting.
“One part of it worked, the part that saved lives. But the other part of securing the Union (hasn't worked).
“It wasn't the settlement we thought it was. I feel we called it wrong at the time.”
Robber convicted of intimidation over Pitt Park mob episode launches appeal
CIARAN BARNES, Sunday Life, Sunday Life, July 20th, 2025
Leading loyalist Derek 'Banic' Lammey is appealing his conviction for taking part in a show of strength connected to claims of UVF intimidation.
The 60-year-old was found guilty last month after a non-jury trial and is due to be sentenced in September. He could face up to five years in prison.
However, Lammey has launched an appeal against his conviction.
This is understood be on the grounds that he was not among the 40 masked loyalists who stormed the Pitt Park area of east Belfast in 2021 and gathered outside a community centre, shouting threats at residents who had taken shelter inside during a dispute.
Recognised
It was the prosecution case that Lammey was among the mob and behaved in a “threatening and intimidating” manner.
The convicted robber refused to answer police questions or give evidence at his trial.
A police officer who was in Pitt Park on the day said he had been able to identify Lammey because he knew him well and recognised his voice.
A defence lawyer argued the evidence against his client was weak and insufficient for a conviction, but Lammey was found guilty of intimidation.
The judge said that there was a “clear intention” by the masked mob to “intimidate those inside the centre and keep them there.”
Charged alongside Derek Lammey but acquitted of intimidation was Stephen Matthews, the alleged former leader of the East Belfast UVF.
Bigger than the Twelfth - Portrush bands event the Open tried to buy off
Angela Davison, Sunday Life, July 20th, 2025,
THOUSANDS LINE TOWN'S STREETS AFTER BAND SNUBS £20K DELAY OFFER
More than 80 bands marched through Portrush last night in a parade that was bigger than any on the Twelfth of July.
The Portrush Sons of Ulster procession got under way at 8.30pm as crowds left The Open.
The Parades Commission said 83 bands were scheduled to take part, making it one of the biggest loyalist parades of the year.
Bands from Dungannon, Belfast, Londonderry, Coleraine and elsewhere were among those taking part.
With Portrush playing host to an estimated 280,000 golf fans, huge crowds of spectators descended on the town from early evening for the annual parade.
The route took in Metropole Green, Sandhill Drive, Eglinton Street, Kerr Street, Upper Main Street, Main Street, Causeway Street, Victoria Street and Dunluce Avenue.
Tight Tee Time schedule
The Royal & Ancient (R&A), which organises The Open, said there were “marginal adjustments” of about 15 minutes to tee-times yesterday.
This was to ensure both events could take place in a “seamless” fashion.
The Portrush Sons of Ulster reportedly turned down a £20,000 offer from the organisers of The Open to postpone the march.
That decision was welcomed by some of those who gathered in the town to watch the event.
Speaking outside The Station Bar, Jeff McCusker said: “(The band) was definitely right to not accept the money.
“This parade is every year on this date, and if the golf organisers had wanted, they could have reached out long before they did.”
The band leading the parade was the Ballykeel Sons of Ulster, from Ballymena.
There were fears of traffic chaos before hand, and while the town was busy, marshals said they kept things under control.
Ballykeel Sons of Ulster Bandmaster Robert Thompson earlier told the Coleraine Chronicle his band had no hesitation in supporting the Portrush Sons of Ulster's decision to go ahead.
He said: “It's an annual fixture and one of our favourite parades that is treated as a family day out.
“At the end of the day, it's Portrush's (Sons of Ulster) prerogative. Whatever they chose to do, we were backing them 100 percent
“If they had chosen not to have held it, we would have backed them.
Breathtaking
“But they chose to go ahead and asked us to have the privilege of leading it. We jumped at the chance.”
Some tourists in the area for The Open stuck around after the golf ended to watch the march.
Harn Huang, who was visiting Portrush from South Africa with her mum and boyfriend, said: “We don't have anything like this (at home).
“I'm here to see both the golf and the parade. It's very cool.”
Not all were even aware a march was taking place, including couple Luke Kelly and Mackenzie Brown from Phoenix, Arizona.
Mackenzie said: “We're not aware of any band parade and can't stay, unfortunately.
“I didn't know what to expect in Portrush. It was breathtaking, the course, the cliffs and the water.”
Canadian tourist Jess Marks and partner Tim Shaw from Germany said they did not know anything about the march but had heard there was “an event that might cause a few problems at the train station with more people trying to leave”.
Craigyhill bonfire sponsored by 'UDA leader's' investment firm
Sunday Life, Reporter, July 20th, 2025
INVESTMENT FIRM HELPED FUND CONTROVERSIAL PYRE
An investment firm part-owned by a UDA boss was the official sponsor of the controversial Craigyhill bonfire.
Summit Investment Horizons helped fund the Eleventh Night 'community festival' in Larne that saw Northern Ireland's biggest loyalist bonfire set alight.
While the event organisers insist the bonfire is inclusive, it retains strong links to David Murray, a notorious loan-shark who was named in court as a UDA leader.
The 52-year-old features prominently in an Amazon TV documentary helping to build the Craigyhill bonfire and is a 70 per cent owner of Summit Investment Horizons, which sponsored this year's pyre.
In a message posted on social media, the online investment firm said: “We're proud to officially sponsor this year's Craigyhill bonfire festival — a legendary celebration of tradition, music and unity.”
Summit Investment Horizons was registered earlier this year, and lists David Murray and his son Dylan (18) as directors. There is no suggestion the teenager is in any way linked to criminality.
Big Spender
The company is seeking investment in night-vision goggles, and promises good returns on any cash put in.
It also boasts of how “one of our CEOs brings over 25 years of experience as a successful entrepreneur, having built and managed multiple thriving businesses”.
This is a reference to David Murray's daytime job as the boss of power-washing firm MG Cleaning Services, which raked in £250,000 over a two-year period cleaning windows around east Antrim.
The revenue meant he was able to splurge £150,000 on a McLaren supercar with personalised number plates.
But what Summit Investment Horizons makes no mention of is how David Murray was identified by a police officer in court in 2013 as the “new commander of the UDA in Larne”.
There is also no reference to how he was once charged with the UDA feud-related murder of UVF man Andrew Cairns, who was beaten and shot in the head at a Larne bonfire.
The murder charge against David Murray was eventually withdrawn and he pleaded guilty to assault, receiving a suspended prison sentence.
In 2021, security sources named Murray as one of the UDA bosses targeted by a government taskforce launched to crack down on loan sharking.
The terror gang was giving out 20 per cent interest loans to vulnerable families in Larne and doubling the repayments if the debt was not settled on time.
The following year, David Murray went on social media to clear his name, writing he had been “fully investigated by the NCA (National Crime Agency) for four years, and they found no wrongdoing at all. Case closed”.
Murray also used social media to deny involvement in criminality, writing last year: “I've had my business 24 years. Ask the ones in my town. I have five vans on the road, employing 10 men.
“It's not a window-cleaning firm. We have contracts all over Northern Ireland doing power washing, UPVC cleaning, factory and commercial cleaning.
Locals disgust
“I don't smoke. I only drink on very rare occasions and rarely go on holiday, so if I spend my earnings on a sports car, what's the problem?”
Meanwhile, UDA members in the Rathcoole estate in Newtownabbey are calling on the terror gang to take action against two of its members who beat up a teenager at an Eleventh Night bonfire in the Diamond area. The 17-year-old was chased by two bandsmen who assaulted him after an argument.
This followed on from trouble earlier that day, when the stepson of a notorious UDA member tried to start a fight at a kids fun day in Rathcoole.
Locals said woman and children looked on in disgust at his behaviour.
Neither incident was connected to David Murray.
Giving vote to 16-year-olds won't swing border poll but will make one more likely
Suzanne Breen, Sunday Life, July 20th, 2025
Unionists have traditionally distrusted Labour governments, but there is no need for them to be suspicious of the current one.
Keir Starmer is very much a patriotic, pro-Union prime minister.
He reinstated the British national anthem to his party's annual conference in 2022. It wasn't half-hearted either. God Save the King was sung with gusto.
Labour is more red, white and blue now than it has been in decades.
The Union flag was prominent in the party's Westminster election literature last year as Starmer symbolically stressed the transition there's been since Jeremy Corbyn.
Affinity
Labour abandoned its policy of supporting Irish unity by consent under Tony Blair, yet many in its ranks still had an affinity with nationalists.
Hilary Benn's father Tony was one of them. He was a supporter of the Troops Out Movement.
His son couldn't be more different. Our current secretary of state is very much a man for the status quo, as is his boss.
Starmer laid his cards on the table on his very first visit to Northern Ireland as Labour leader.
He said if a border poll was to take place, he would “make a strong case for the United Kingdom”.
He has since been highly dismissive of a referendum being held.
“I don't think we're anywhere near that question. It's absolutely hypothetical. It's not even on the horizon,” he said.
Yet Starmer has just strengthened the hand of those seeking a border poll. His decision to lower the voting age to 16 for the next Westminster election isn't a gamechanger on Northern Ireland's constitutional future, but it will hasten the speed of the journey we're on.
Data analyst Peter Donaghy says it will put 51,000 potential new voters onto the register, increasing the electorate by 3.5 per cent. He has calculated that 49 per cent of them will be Catholic, 33 per cent Protestant and 18 per cent 'other'.
In last year's Westminster election, the total unionist vote was just over 43 per cent, while the nationalist vote was slightly over 40 per cent.
As well as the young new electors potentially narrowing the gap in nationalism's favour, unionism's ageing demographic means its numbers will continue to decline every year unless it starts to reach out beyond its base.
Burning effigies of immigrants in boats and opposing GAA children learning cricket at a summer camp suggests some in the loyalist community have difficulty in stretching themselves.
Opinion polls consistently show older voters are the most committed to the Union, and support for Irish unity is strongest among younger electors.
Professor Jon Tonge, of Liverpool University, sees lowering the voting age here as “an incremental step on the road to Irish unity” rather than a dramatic accelerant.
Disinterest
While it is good news for Sinn Fein and nationalism, he points out young people are much less likely to vote than older folk.
The general election study Tonge led last year showed that only 29 per cent of 18 to 24-year-olds here voted, compared to 73 per cent of 65 to 70-year-olds.
It also highlighted the disinterest in politics among young people in Northern Ireland. Just 5 per cent said they had a great or good deal of interest, one in 10 had some interest, and 85 per cent had not much or none.
But, as Tonge acknowledges, a border poll would energise the younger generation in a way other elections just don't.
Lowering the voting age should focus our parties even more on how they engage with young people.
My daughters, aged 14 and 17, follow politics solely online. It's on social media that the battle for the very existence of Northern Ireland will increasingly be fought.
'Who are you? Who are you?' they yelled, as all six pointed guns at me
It's 50 years since a loyalist attack on the members of the Miami Showband shocked the world. Paul Murphy, the first reporter on the scene of the atrocity, recalls his narrow escape
Thursday, July 31, 1975 started for me with an early morning phone call to my home in Drogheda from Evening Herald news editor Pádraig Beirne. "Paul, you better head to Co Down, there's been some kind of a shooting or bombing there. It's somewhere north of Newry. No details at present but come back to me as soon as you can.”
I set out sometime after 6.30am and within an hour I was at the scene of the incident, 49km away at Buskhill, between Newry and Banbridge.
Astoundingly, I was the only one there. The site had been left unguarded overnight. While the incident had happened at 2.30am, the first security forces to attend had simply taped off the area of the attack on the Miami Showband minibus — and gone away to their beds.
At that stage I was unaware of the enormity of the attack and the effect it would have on so many lives. This was just one of a litany of atrocities during the Troubles.
There were no technical aids available for reporters in the field at that time. The best that could be done was to survey the scene of an incident, take into memory as much of a scene as possible, hopefully get a few interviews and then head to the nearest telephone box to phone the story over to the office.
The blackened detritus from the explosion and shooting lay beyond police tape. There was the remaining hulk of the Miami Showband Volkswagen minibus, large pieces of metal spread out in all directions, boots and shoes and, lying among the rubble, promotional photos of the young band members.
On that fateful morning, deep in the heart of lush Co Down countryside I made a decision that was stupid and potentially extremely dangerous.
I decided to go inside the tape for a closer look.
Because there was no one around, I was able to wander around the site at will, trying to absorb as much information as possible so I could describe the scene in detail, even though I was unaware at that stage of the full dreadful and vicious nature of the attack.
Within about 30 minutes, the first police contingent arrived, all plainclothes detectives. They too came under the tape and started their examination of the site.
One detective edged up to me and asked: "Who are you?”
"I'm a journalist,” I said.
He didn't ask for ID but just took me by the elbow and led me outside the tape. "You're to stay outside,” he said.
I complied, and for the next half-hour or so I wandered between my parked car and the police tape. Then I sat into my car to listen to the RTÉ morning news bulletin.
It was then I realised that this was a major incident: the band had been stopped at a bogus military checkpoint and ordered out onto the roadside, the minibus was searched — and during that search the bogus soldiers attempted to plant a bomb in the van.
The bomb exploded prematurely, killing two of the disguised terrorists — and the rest of the gang opened fire on the band members, killing Fran O'Toole (29), Brian McCoy (32) and Tony Geraghty (24), and wounding Stephen Travers.
The band's saxophonist Des McAlea (also known by his stage name of Des Lee) was hurled into a ditch by the force of the explosion. He escaped further injury by pretending he was dead.
After listening to the news bulletin, I felt I had enough information to be able to compile a report, and started up the car so I could turn from the scene and head for Newry, 11km away, to phone in my report (there were no mobile phones or laptops in 1975).
Just as the engine started up, six British soldiers who had been lying unseen in a ditch beside me jumped out and pointed their guns at me.
"Who are you? Who are you?” they yelled. I replied that I was a journalist, holding my arms in the air, afraid to reach for my press pass in my pocket.
"I'm waiting for the arrival here of the RUC press officer,” I said.
One of them, with a gun trained on me, said: "You're waiting for nobody. Just f**k off out of here and don't come back.”
‘Glad to escape’
I didn't hesitate. I was glad to escape and could only come to the conclusion that they hadn't been in the area when I went under the tape — otherwise they wouldn't have asked any questions and I would have been toast.
When I got to Newry, I met my colleague Ray Managh, who had been sent to the Border and we compiled a report for the Evening Herald. While on the phone, the Herald news editor told me that a survivor of the incident, Des Lee, lived at an address in Swords, Co Dublin.
I knew the area pretty well and was able to find his address in one of the newer estates there.
Outside the driveway of the house, a group of four or five journalists huddled together. They told me they had tried to interview the occupants but were unsuccessful. Everyone was too shocked to speak and it was useless trying.
I said I would at least try to get an interview and rang the doorbell.
The young woman who answered was instantly recognisable to me — and she, in turn, knew who I was. I had met Brenda McAlea (28) numerous times while covering district court sessions in Swords. At lunch breaks I would drive the short distance to The Coachman's Inn on the edge of Dublin Airport where Brenda was a member of the staff. I always got a nice greeting from her — so obviously, even though she was at the centre of deep trauma for herself and her husband, she recognised me and brought me inside.
"Des is upstairs in bed, deeply sedated,” she said. I told her not to disturb him and we spoke for a few minutes. She said: "Will it help if I told you everything that Des told me about what happened?”
My report in next day's Irish Independent, with additional reporting by Charlie Mallon, Ray Managh, Jimmy Kelly and Tony Wilson, outlined how McAlea said that after he was thrown clear by the premature explosion of the bomb, the terrorist gang opened fire on his fellow band members.
A UVF statement said they massacred the band because their van was carrying bombs and guns. In fact, the UVF's sinister plan was to plant a bomb in the van, allow it to travel on and have the bomb timed to go off while the vehicle was in the Republic — falsely indicating to everyone that these showbands were all up to arms smuggling while travelling across the Border. But the fact was that these were entirely innocent musicians.
Des McAlea told his wife: "We thought they [the gunmen] were military men waving a torch at us. We weren't suspicious at all. They lined every one of us up and we began to feel a bit suspicious then.”
Brenda said: "It's awful. Des is heavily sedated and he is very shocked. He is raving and keeps waking up — and the only thing he can remember is this man pushing a gun into his face and then Des ducked.”
She had been roused from bed by a garda ringing her doorbell in the early hours of the morning.
"I thought it might be Des and he had forgotten his key. I just said: 'Was there a crash? Is Des hurt? Is he dead?' He told me he didn't know and gave me a number to call Newry RUC station. I was shocked and frightened.
"I asked him to come in and make the call — and when I got through to Newry, Des said: 'Fran is dead, Fran is dead. Brian is gone. Tony is gone. Stephen is wounded. I'm alive. I'm alive.'”
Des had stayed lying on the ground at the site of the attack for more than an hour, playing dead. When he thought the killers were all gone, he managed to hail a passing motorist and made his way to the RUC station in Newry, in a hysterical and shocked condition.
He spent a number of hours with RUC detectives relating how the incident had unfolded and was taken to Daisy Hill Hospital for treatment for a shrapnel wound to his leg.
"I could not get anything out of him at first,” Brenda told me. "He was just raving. It's all a blur to him. He keeps saying: 'The boys are dead, the boys are dead. They gunned them down.'”
Shaking with terror at her husband's escape from death, she hit out at UVF claims that gunfire had come from the band's minibus.
"Oh God, it's disgusting. It is just so untrue. It is so barbaric even to think of it. Anybody who would know them would know that they would never do anything like that. It sickens me. They were not a bit afraid of going up North.
"The band is made up of Catholics and Protestants. They had no political feelings whatsoever. They all got on well together and that is proved by the success they had.”
Two of the UVF gunmen — Harris Boyle and Wesley Somerville — were killed by the bomb they were planting on the minibus. Two serving Ulster Defence Regiment soldiers and one former UDR man later received life sentences after they were found guilty of murder.
A day of commemoration to mark the 50th anniversary of the massacre takes place on Thursday, July 31, at Buskhill, Co Down. Events start at 12 noon, followed by the unveiling of a plaque at the Town Hall in Newry at 1.30pm, another unveiling of a plaque at the site of the old Adelphi Ballroom in Dundalk, and on to Dublin for a similar ceremony at Parnell Square North.
The launch of My Saxophone Saved My Life by Des Lee takes place at Hodges Figgis bookshop on Dawson Street, Dublin, on Monday, July 28, at 6pm.
