Patterns of Evidence VII: Lessons in Murder - IRA School Murders

Act I - The School Run

William Staunton

In 1972 the PIRA campaign was at its most intense but even in places profoundly impacted by the violence daily life went on. Thus it was that William Staunton, like parents all over the world, made the school run with his two daughters and some of their friends on 11th October 1972. He drew up outside St Dominic’s High School on the Falls Road around 8:45am. Most of the children had left the car when two men pulled up alongside on a motorcycle. One of the magistrate’s daughters was still in the car when the pillion passenger on the bike fired through the driver’s window hitting Mr Staunton in the head and body.

Belfast Telegraph report on the shooting.

He slumped forward over the wheel and the car went out of control, crashing into the nearby school wall. He was helped by passers by including a doctor from the nearby Royal Victoria, underwent a seven hour operation and spent 15 weeks in intensive care. 

But the father of 4 died on 25th January 1973.

Report on Judge Stauton losing his fight for life in the News Letter.

The coroner commented that the shooting “could hardly have happened in Chicago in its heyday.”

Mourners at his funeral included Garret McGrath QC, chair of the Bar Council, who commented: “I think perhaps in the context of his death it should be said he was a good Irishman”.

Mr Staunton was the first of a number of judges murdered by the IRA. His 12 year old daughter wrote a poem after her father’s murder which was published in the local press: 

Don’t cry, Mummy said

‘They’re not real.’

Bur Daddy was

And he’s not here.

‘Don’t be bitter,” Mummy said

‘They’ve hurt themselves much more.’

But they can walk and run-

Daddy can’t.

‘Forgive them and forget,’ Mummy said.

But can Daddy know I do?

“Smile for Daddy, kiss him well,” Mummy said,

But can I ever?

Act II - The Lollipop Patrol

Photo of Private Peter Sharp which appeared in a contemporary newspaper

A year earlier on 1st October 1971 and just three and a half miles from St Dominic’s, at the junction of Chatham Street and Kerrera Street, Private Peter Sharp was part of what the army described as a “lollipop patrol”. In certain areas of Belfast, particularly in the north of the city, soldiers would frequently patrol to keep rival school pupils apart.

It was Private Sharp’s final patrol before he finished his tour and returned to Teeside. He was shot as he guarded children making their way home. A spokesperson for the Green Howards said:

“Many of the men made firm friends with the kids and would bring them presents of sweets and fruit”.

Sharp had been married just five months. After the murder his widow was placed under heavy sedation. His brother told the press:

“She is heartbroken. They cannot have had more than 10 days together since they were married. We were expecting him home in the next 24 hours. Anne was just keeping her fingers crossed all the time”.

Newspaper report on the murder of Private Peter Sharp (click to enlarge)

Act III - The School Teacher

Ivan Anderson

I’ve previously blogged about George Saunderson, the principal of Erne Primary School in Teemore, who was shot 10 times in the back in his school. He wasn’t the only teacher to die during the PIRA campaign. The first Greenfinch (female UDR member) to be murdered was Eva Martin, a school teacher in Fivemiletown High.

Unlike Eva Martin who was murdered while on duty with the UDR, the principle of Sixmilecross Primary, Ivan Anderson, was ambushed on his way home from school on the 21st May 1987 and crashed into the ditch on an isolated stretch of road. The RUC were initially called to a traffic accident.

The part time UDR man had a guard of honour of school pupils in uniform at his funeral.

Act IV - The Delivery Driver

Herbert Kernaghan

On Monday 15th October 1979 the Principle of St Tierney’s Primary in Roslea arrived for work. John Potter quotes Colin Toibin's account of how the headmaster described what happened in A Walk Along the Border:

“He had walked into the school kitchen to find the caretaker and the kitchen staff sitting at a table. He had asked what was going on, but was met with silence. Then he saw a hooded man beside the door who asked him who he was. Another hooded man appeared in the room as well. It was clear that they were waiting to kill someone, but the staff had no idea who. Names went through their minds; they didn’t even know which side the hooded men were on - they might have come to shoot a teacher with Republican sympathies. He asked them to go and get the children out of the way. “None of the children will be harmed,” they said, and told him to shut up. Soon the staff discovered that the hooded men were waiting for Herbie, who came on certain days in a delivery van. He was a part-time UDR man.

“They waited in the school for the sound of a van to approach knowing that if Herbie was there, as he always was, then he was going to be killed. The two hooded men told them to lie down on the floor, and not raise the alarm for ten minutes. Then the van came. The staff heard the sharp, piercing sound of the gunfire. Herbie hadn’t a chance. They pumped 21 bullets into him, having got up close to him."

20 of the school’s 150 pupils were in the playground when the delivery of fruit and vegetables arrived in a vehicle driven by off duty UDR man Herbert Kernaghan. One 11 year old described what they saw:

“The man who was shot smiled at me when he drove into the school. I saw a man with a hood and a rifle go over to the lorry and fire into the cab. He fired about six shots. The driver did not have time to get out of the lorry”.

The teacher later asked Colin Toibin to imagine the effect the murder had on the pupils.

A wreath from the staff and pupils at St Tierney’s was laid on the grave of the 36 year old father of three.

His widow gave birth to a fourth child (Herbert) two weeks after the murder.

Act V - The Bus Driver

James Graham

As with the school teacher a number of examples could be cited but let’s stay in Co Fermanagh.

On 1st February 1985 James Graham had just arrived at St Mary’s Primary School Derrylin to take pupils to a regular Friday morning swimming class in Enniskillen. As he was parking, a murderer fired seven shots from a range of two yards through the window screen. He tried to escape by running down between the seats but two other murderers entered the bus and fired a further 24 shots. The off duty UDR man was found with wounds to his head and chest and his legally held gun beside him.

People gathered in the village for the St Brigid’s Day Mass heard the murderers cheering as they drove off across the border.

The fact that James was the third of three brothers to be murdered lead the local MP Ken Maginnis to say, “It underlines a point I have made repeatedly that this is a genocide - a conscious effort by the IRA to systematically wipe out Protestant families in the community”.

Conclusions

Some of the other IRA victims who could have been included in this blogpost 

Much more could have been written. Many other examples could have been chosen.

I could have written about the bomb in the drawer of a headmaster’s desk in Carrick Primary, Lurgan, which killed 26 year old Detective Constable Andrew Johnston and badly injured another officer and a school caretaker.

I could have written about the bomb in the grounds of a north Belfast school used to murder 16 year old Edward Wilson.

I could have written about school bus drivers Robert North or James McKee (who displayed remarkable bravery in the moments before his death). 

I could have written about the other soldier shot while on lollipop patrol, Alan Kennington.

I could have written about minibus driver Norman Duncan or John Green, a solider shot in a school acting as a polling station.

As is often the case when one sits down to work on an aspect or theme in the PIRA campaign which illustrates their callous brutality and sheer disregard for what must surely be viewed as accepted rules in any “war” the problem is not lack of material.

These cases once again highlight the tremendous bravery of the part-time members of the security forces. They were people who alongside serving in the UDR or RUCR worked as school teachers, bus drivers and deliverymen.

Unlike regular soldiers they didn’t go to live in a barracks once their patrol was over but back to their homes and their communities where they sought to lead a normal life in abnormal times.

It was more often than not when they were performing their day job that the IRA chose to strike.

Cases such as those cited above illustrate that when Republicans seek to justify their bloody terrorist campaign by claiming that most people they murdered were members of the “crown forces” they are at best distorting the truth.

Shooting a school teacher in his school nine times in the back or a bus driver preparing to bring children swimming sounds a great deal less brave and grand than “engaging legitimate targets”.

The case of William Staunton reminds us that they were quite prepared to murder  “a good Irishman” and to do so in front of children in their own heartland. The murders of Herbert Kernaghan and James Graham - one making deliveries to a rural Catholic school in Fermanagh and the other collecting pupils from a Catholic school to go to swimming lessons - not only show the callous nature of the PIRA campaign but surely does something to undermine Republican attempts to portray the security forces as the heartless oppressors of the Nationalist people.

As for their grand engagements with the British Army - next time you see a lollipop man or woman remember those murdered while on lollipop patrol.

A note on sources

In order to write this blog post I have drawn material from the following sources:

Lost Lives by McKittrick et al.

A Testimony to Courage: The Regimental History of the Ulster Defence Regiment by John Potter

Constabulary Heroes 1826-2009: Incorporating RUC GC/PSNI by Sam Trotter

To Kill A Judge: The Worst of Crimes

IRA Murders of Human Rights Lawyers & Judges

‘Forgive them and forget’ Mummy said - A poem for this Memorial Day 

Your Legacy Lives On - booklet accompanying South East Fermanagh Foundation (SEFF) memorial quilt 

The British Newspaper Archive

CAIN

I have sought to be careful but if anyone spots factual errors in the above piece please email me at onthisdayni@gmail.com , message the Facebook page or PM me on Twitter.