On This Day PIRA

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 fa...

Garrison is a small village in rural Co Fermanagh close to the border with Co Leitrim in the Republic of Ireland. It obtained its name after a barracks was erected there by the Williamite forces following the Battle of Aughrim. Despite its connection to the iconic period of Orange history Garrison was and remains a strongly Republican village, something underscored by the fact that under the aborted proposals of the Irish Boundary Commission in 1925 it would have been transferred from Northern Ireland to the Irish Free State.  There was, nonetheless, a small Protestant population in the village in the 1970s. The events of 1st March 1972 were to change that. IRA murder victim Thomas (Johnny) Fletcher Thomas Fletcher, known as Johnny, was a forestry worker as well as working a small 20-acre farm which straddled the border. He had married 3 years previously. Johnny enjoyed shooting and darts, a sport in which his left handedness resulted in some comment. He was als...

The IRA were not Wild West style gunslingers who challenged the local lawman to a shootout at high noon. Their modus operandi was to engage them while off duty and effectively defenceless or, particularly when it came to the RUC, to murder them while on duty but unable to defend themselves (like David Ead - shot in the back of the head on a seaside promenade on a sunny day before the murderers made off through the crowds). You can review the cases of off duty murders we have covered to date on the twitter account here . When Republicans point out that a relatively small percentage of murders by the PIRA in border areas had no security force connections they ignore the fact that Protestants had a strong tradition of serving in the security forces along the border and indeed in the regular armed forces. The Fermanagh based Royal Inniskilling Fusiliers had a history dating back to the 17th century for example. They also ignore the fact that most of those...