1988 IRA funeral Footage

d_mcevoy

I'm looking for images/video of.......

Two British soldiers who blundered into an IRA funeral cortège in West Belfast were killed by a lynch mob in 1988

... for a project on the conflict in the north.

scojones

d_mcevoy wrote:

I'm looking for images/video of.......

Two British soldiers who blundered into an IRA funeral cortège in West Belfast were killed by a lynch mob in 1988

... for a project on the conflict in the north.

I've heard about this before, never seen any footage of it though, sorry

Pigman II

iirc It's in the relevant ep of Reeling in the Years if that's any use to you.

Sifo

d_mcevoy wrote:

I'm looking for images/video of.......

Two British soldiers who blundered into an IRA funeral cortège in West Belfast were killed by a lynch mob in 1988

... for a project on the conflict in the north.

interesting project

http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/march/16/newsid_2523000/2523953.stm

http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/july/24/newsid_2515000/2515041.stm

hope this helps

Peace

No wait, wrong incident i'm talking about.... never mind.

Hope this helps!

biko

I had a look at BBC http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/years/1988/default.stm but found only this http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/march/16/newsid_2523000/2523953.stm

Litcagral

d_mcevoy wrote:

I'm looking for images/video of.......

Two British soldiers who blundered into an IRA funeral cortège in West Belfast were killed by a lynch mob in 1988

... for a project on the conflict in the north.

RTE or BBC maybe.

It was a very dramatic and horrific incident. As far as I can remember they were driving a Ford Granada when surrounded. They tried to escape the mob but failed.I remember a man up on the car roof breaking the sunroof with a wheel brace. Animalistic behaviour. I think it was what is generally called a "defining moment".

Litcagral

Sifo wrote:

interesting project

http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/march/16/newsid_2523000/2523953.stm

http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/july/24/newsid_2515000/2515041.stm

hope this helps

The incident the OP refers to took place several days after the linked incident. It was at the funerals of the 3(?) victims of the Michael Stone cemetry shooting/bombing that the British soldiers were ambushed.

biko

Wednesday 16 March 1988
Milltown Cemetery Killings
During the funerals, at Milltown Cemetery in Belfast, for the three Irish Republican Army (IRA) members killed in Gibraltar (6 March 1988) a Loyalist gunman, Michael Stone, launched a grenade and gun attack on mourners. Three people were killed and 50 injured. The whole episode was recorded by television news cameras. The police and the army had withdrawn to avoid any confrontation with the mourners. Stone was chased to a nearby motorway were he was attacked by a number of mourners. The police arrived in time to save his life. [The main loyalist paramilitary groups denied any involvement with Stone. One of those killed, Kevin Brady, was a member of the IRA.]

Saturday 19 March 1988
Army Corporals Killed
During the funeral of Kevin Brady, killed at Milltown Cemetery (16 March 1988), a car approached the funeral procession at high speed. It was claimed by some present that they feared another attack by Loyalist gunmen. The car's passage was blocked and a group of the mourners attacked the two passengers. The two men in the car were later identified as corporals Derek Wood and David Howes of the British Army. One of the soldiers fired a warning shot but both were beaten and overpowered. The two soldiers were driven to waste ground and shot dead. Part of this incident was also recorded on television news cameras. [The presence of the two soldiers in plain clothes in a republican district of Belfast was never adequately explained.]

From http://cain.ulst.ac.uk/othelem/chron/ch88.htm
News cameras - so there has to be pics somewhere.
I guess the killings days earlier also had an play in the murders.

Sifo

Litcagral wrote:

The incident the OP refers to took place several days after the linked incident. It was at the funerals of the 3(?) victims of the Michael Stone cemetry shooting/bombing that the British soldiers were ambushed.

well then i guess its linked to the OPs project...



theres always one :rolleyes:

Pigman II

Yeah it's on Relling in the Years 1988 (about 10mins in, lasts about 30seconds). Sorry but I can't offer it you. Someone else might have it.

Dyr

"Ambush" would suggest people laid a trap for them as opposed to them driving the wrong way up a road at high speed into a funeral procession....:rolleyes:

irlrobins

agh! I was looking at this video in the past 2 weeks. I'll have to see if I can remember source. Get back to you if I do.

Found it!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pgzz-uXkEkk

d_mcevoy

I found this but if anyone has better footage links please let me know.


http://media.putfile.com/Irish-Republican-Media---Gibralteracoma-Milt

Macker

Sifo wrote:

had a little dog and his name was................. [URL=snip[/URL]


goddamn it bingo.... always late

Linking to porn is a bit dodgy don't ye think

Sifo

Macker wrote:

Linking to porn is a bit dodgy don't ye think

its not a porn site, it just has links down the side... anyway big deal.. were all adults here.. well at least 90% of us are..


apologies to anyone who finds the link offensive, i just googled it...

Hagar

Sifo please loose the link as quickly as you can.

Beruthiel

Sifo wrote:

its not a porn site, it just has links down the side... anyway big deal.. were all adults here.. well at least 90% of us are...

sifo
banned from After Hours
I'll leave it to one of the AH mods to decide when to let him back in
B

Scruff

for a project eh? hmmm...

remember seeing most of that footage years ago. dont think at the time they showed them actually being dragged away or the security camera footage of them being shot.

and to think there are still some nutters who want to return to those days....

biko

d_mcevoy wrote:

I'm looking for images/video of.......

Two British soldiers who blundered into an IRA funeral cortège in West Belfast were killed by a lynch mob in 1988

... for a project on the conflict in the north.

I had a look around and there are tons of videos here http://upthera.net/IRM/IRM.htm

Btw, they were shot, not hanged/lynched

irlrobins

biko wrote:

Btw, they were shot, not hanged/lynched

Lynch does not mean hanging. It refers to any method of killing by an non-judical group.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lynch_mob

biko

irlrobins wrote:

Lynch does not mean hanging. It refers to any method of killing by an non-judical group.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lynch_mob

Oh I got it from an event in Galway when James Lynch FitzStephen, the mayor, hanged his own son for murdering a Spanish guest. Guess it can be used in a wider sense.

Pigman II

Did anyone watch that "retort to Bill O'Reilly" from MSNBC on the site Sifo linked to (I won't provide url for obvious reasons).

Anyway what the hell was that!?! 3 minutes of some guy reading Bill O'Reilly quotes in a silly put-on voice and then retorting with lame-ass quips! I think BOR is a twat so I was expecting something biting considering it had 'pwned' in the title. In reality it was the intellectual equivilant sticking your tongue out at someone! And all this coming from some grey haired guy in his 50s! :eek:

Anyway is that what actually constitutes 'news' in america these days?

biko

biko wrote:

Btw, they were shot, not hanged/lynched

Eventually.

They had been subjected to a savage beating by that time, not aware if they were conscious when they were shot. They were dragged to wasteland where their 'execution' was carried out. The image of the priest kneeling beside the beaten body of a young man lying in just his socks )presume clothes torn off him in the melee) is something that should haunt anyone who grew up in the 80s and should serve as the most pressing reminder why, for all the complaints about waiting lists and infrastructure overspends, and all the glib crap from vacuous media whores like Eddie Hobbs, we have so much to thank this and recent Governments of all descriptions for.

Beer is Life

irlrobins wrote:

agh! I was looking at this video in the past 2 weeks. I'll have to see if I can remember source. Get back to you if I do.

Found it!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pgzz-uXkEkk

Does anyone know what music is being played here? Its haunting.

Dyr

the tune is "black is the colour" isnt it? its some song about the gibraltar three..lyrics are pretty brutal

patzer117

biko wrote:

I had a look around and there are tons of videos here http://upthera.net/IRM/IRM.htm

Those videos are quite incredible. they're like snuff videos ffs. Crazy, but fascinating at the same time

Snickers Man

Litcagral wrote:

RTE or BBC maybe.

I remember a man up on the car roof breaking the sunroof with a wheel brace. Animalistic behaviour.

You can see the same man on the clip posted by sifo about the attack on the mourners at the cemetery that had taken place the previous day. About half way through it.

He's the bald guy diving into a crowd to rescue an unfortunate who was having the crap kicked out of him. The victim was a reporter on a local paper. Mobile phones were expensive items in those days and local newspapers reckoned they couldn't afford to give their reporters any. This poor creature was running towards the exit to find a pay phone to call in his scoop and people reckoned he was an accomplice of Michael Stone (the fat guy in the flat cap throwing the grenades). He would probably have been beaten to death had not baldy jumped in to rescue him because he recognised him.

Baldy, was in fact a chap called 'Cleeky' Clarke who went on to become Gerry Adams' bodyguard.

Oh and the local newspaper started equipping their reporters with phones shortly afterwards.

Or so a man told me in a pub once.

Snickers Man

Bambi wrote:

the tune is "black is the colour" isnt it?

It is. An old Scottish love song that Christy Moore does very well. I couldn't make head nor tail of the lyrics of the version played here.

Probably just as well.

Sparky

Very good videos

Zebra3

I remember it all very well.

It 'started' when an unarmed IRA ASU were shot dead by the SAS in Gibraltar. Their bodies were flown back to Dublin and then moved back to Belfast where Michael Stone turned up throwing grenades and shooting at those burying their dead.

Usually there would be a huge RUC/British army presence at these funerals to try and stop any shots being fired over the coffin, etc but by pure chance the RUC only turned up as Stone was about to beaten to death. Coincidence? :rolleyes:

Days later, the two British soldiers bizarelly drove into the middle of one of the funerals of those Stone had killed and needless to say people weren't gonna let the same thing happened again. Given that one of the soldiers (neither were in uniform and they were in an unmarked car) turned a gun on the mourners, it was no surprise they were taken out and killed.

The Brits must have known they were driving into the funeral. They could not have not known!!! What were they up to and what was their motive????

The Sweeper

I remember watching that for the first time on the BBC One Northern Ireland news when I was a child and it had just happened. The images stuck with me throughout my life.

I haven't seen them again in eighteen years, until now.

And every detail is precisely as I remember it.

I suppose it's like that when you watch someone dying.

The thing I always remember from my childhood is my mother saying "look at him, he's firing in the air to scare them, he doesn't want to hurt anyone, he's just firing in the air".

We'd never seen anything quite like it.

Don't kid yourselves. You're watching murder when you watch those tapes.

Mr_Roger_Bongos

I think it was guessed at the time that they were in the s.a.s. and from memory (documentary program on the incident and the events that surrounded it) they didn't stumble into the funeral. They were parked at the side of the road to observe anyone who may have I.R.A. connections who was in attendance. I'd say the mob probably didn't know they were sercuirty forces, but it was guessed because they were both sitting in the car while a funeral procession passed.

biko

Bambi wrote:

the tune is "black is the colour" isnt it? its some song about the gibraltar three..lyrics are pretty brutal

It's the Ballad of Mairéad Farrell

dubtom

I would guess your best bet would be to ask UTV/BBC. As I recall the actually executions were filmed from a helicopter and shown on TV after a court case of one of those accused. One was shot 7 and the other 8 times in the head. I haven't seen that actual footage since and you'll notice in the link provided above that it had been edited out. I have to say that it's a shame that perfectly good historical footage of events from 1916 on are ruined by that music played over them.

klong

Mr_Roger_Bongos wrote:

I think it was guessed at the time that they were in the s.a.s. and from memory (documentary program on the incident and the events that surrounded it) they didn't stumble into the funeral. They were parked at the side of the road to observe anyone who may have I.R.A. connections who was in attendance. I'd say the mob probably didn't know they were sercuirty forces, but it was guessed because they were both sitting in the car while a funeral procession passed.

When the two corporals were searched by the mob their military ID cards were found, both of which had "Herford" written on them. Herford was/is a garrison town in Germany. Hereford, close to the England/Wales border, is where the SAS are based. This is how the belief that they were SAS came about.

Hagar

dubtom wrote:

One was shot 7 and the other 8 times in the head.

Funny they didn't look Brazilian...:rolleyes:

Zebra3

Zebra3 wrote:

I remember it all very well.

It 'started' when an unarmed IRA ASU were shot dead by the SAS in Gibraltar. Their bodies were flown back to Dublin and then moved back to Belfast where Michael Stone turned up throwing grenades and shooting at those burying their dead.

Usually there would be a huge RUC/British army presence at these funerals to try and stop any shots being fired over the coffin, etc but by pure chance the RUC only turned up as Stone was about to beaten to death. Coincidence? :rolleyes:

Days later, the two British soldiers bizarelly drove into the middle of one of the funerals of those Stone had killed and needless to say people weren't gonna let the same thing happened again. Given that one of the soldiers (neither were in uniform and they were in an unmarked car) turned a gun on the mourners, it was no surprise they were taken out and killed.

The Brits must have known they were driving into the funeral. They could not have not known!!! What were they up to and what was their motive????

That's more than a little biased.

Whatever about the motive' of the 'Brits', two men didn't deserve to be dragged into wasteland and executed. And remember they were not shot dead by the passionate grievers or killed at the scene in a fit of rage. It was cold and calculating.

dubtom

Hagar wrote:

Funny they didn't look Brazilian...:rolleyes:

What????

magpie

I remember seeing this on the news at the time and being utterly appaled by what I saw.

A silver audi came zooming around the corner, the driver realised they were in the wrong place and then starting trying to reverse away, at which point the car was deliberately boxed in by black cabs and a mob descended on the car ending in the footage presented here.

What amazes me is that with all the trite republican propaganda and justifications beiong trotted out here nobody has pointed out that despite the fact these two soldiers were armed they neither ran anyone over in an attempt to escape, nor did they shoot any of the crowd who were evidently bent on killing them. All they did was fire one or two shots in the air to try nd clear the crowd.

If I'd been in that car I would've emptied my magazine into the crowd and then floored it through them to escape - so surely you have to hand it to those guys for showing such constraint in the face of the barbarism and hatred on display at an IRA funeral. And what did they get in return? They were stripped, beaten, thrown off a carpark and shot repeatedly in the head.

Think about that if you're planning on voting Sinn Fein. Do you really want these animals running our country?

Dyr

Constraint? after the events that had occured which led to this funeral, driving a speeding car into a funeral cortege and then waving guns around is constraint? Just shows what an oxymoron military intelligence can be, darwinism took care of the rest

magpie

driving a speeding car into a funeral cortege

They drove around a corner, realised they were in the wrong place, tried to reverse away and were then deliberately boxed in by taxis. Try watching the footage.

and then waving guns around is constraint?

They fired warning shots after a mob had descended on the car and started trying to kill them. Again, try watching the footage.

This is why there will never be peace on this island, when people like bambi are so completely blinded by dogma they can't even discern what's going on in perfectly clear film footage.

Dyr

magpie wrote:

They drove around a corner, realised they were in the wrong place, tried to reverse away and were then deliberately boxed in by taxis. Try watching the footage.

lol, british military intelligence didnt realise there was an IRA funeral on there at the precise time they decided to take a high speed tour of belfast? You dont just drive around a corner and then realise you're speeding past the major media event of the day. The "honest mistake guvnor" line doesnt wash. Its no suprise the crowd reacted they way they did regardless of what you thought watching from the living room

magpie wrote:

This is why there will never be peace on this island, when people like bambi are so completely blinded by dogma they can't even discern what's going on in perfectly clear film footage.

lol a bit more, are we being blinded by amateur dramatics a bit?

Snickers Man

Mr_Roger_Bongos wrote:

I think it was guessed at the time that they were in the s.a.s. and from memory (documentary program on the incident and the events that surrounded it) they didn't stumble into the funeral. They were parked at the side of the road to observe anyone who may have I.R.A. connections who was in attendance. I'd say the mob probably didn't know they were sercuirty forces, but it was guessed because they were both sitting in the car while a funeral procession passed.

The IRA always said they were SAS because they like to associate that word with the most bloodthirsty ruthless murderous killers in the British Army.

Probably quite rightly. The Gibraltar operation was one of the few, if not the only times, that the SAS took out an IRA unit without causing 'collateral damage' to innocent bystanders.

More reasoned speculation at the time pointed out that both men in the car were signallers and that therefore the likelihood was that they were attempting to bug the march to provide audio to go along with the pictures provided by the camera in the helicopter overhead.

What is utter nonsense is the Army's official story that the men were on leave and just happened to drive into an IRA funeral on the Falls Road because they got lost.

Gimme a break!

This was a day, or maybe two, after a funeral had been attacked and three people killed. In fact, I think it was the funeral of one or two of those people.

Sure. What happened was savage. And unjustifiable. But it was hardly a surprise.

It was very like the killing of Jean Menendez in London (The Brazilian to which somebody referred earlier) in London. A bunch of pumped up people with guns reacting to what they wrongly believed was a dangerous situation.

Snickers Man

Mr_Roger_Bongos wrote:

I think it was guessed at the time that they were in the s.a.s. and from memory (documentary program on the incident and the events that surrounded it) they didn't stumble into the funeral. They were parked at the side of the road to observe anyone who may have I.R.A. connections who was in attendance. I'd say the mob probably didn't know they were sercuirty forces, but it was guessed because they were both sitting in the car while a funeral procession passed.

The IRA always said they were SAS because they like to associate that word with the most bloodthirsty ruthless murderous killers in the British Army.

Probably quite rightly. The Gibraltar operation was one of the few, if not the only times, that the SAS took out an IRA unit without causing 'collateral damage' to innocent bystanders.

More reasoned speculation at the time pointed out that both men in the car were signallers and that therefore the likelihood was that they were attempting to bug the march to provide audio to go along with the pictures provided by the camera in the helicopter overhead.

What is utter nonsense is the Army's official story that the men were on leave and just happened to drive into an IRA funeral on the Falls Road because they got lost.

Gimme a break!

This was a day, or maybe two, after a funeral had been attacked and three people killed. In fact, I think it was the funeral of one or two of those people.

Sure. What happened was savage. And unjustifiable. But it was hardly a surprise.

It was very like the killing of Jean Menendez in London (The Brazilian to which somebody referred earlier) in London. A bunch of pumped up people with guns reacting to what they wrongly believed was a dangerous situation.

Snickers Man

magpie wrote:

If I'd been in that car I would've emptied my magazine into the crowd and then floored it through them to escape -

You'd have ended up just as dead. You'd never have got out of there alive. They were boxed in by black taxis, as you said.

Mind you. Love the signature tune. Brings back memories of Jenny Hanley in a low cut blouse with unfettered bazoomas bouncing all over my TV screen.......

.....arrghhh. Podge and Rodge moment. Arghhh..............

magpie

Love the signature tune. Brings back memories of Jenny Hanley in a low cut blouse with unfettered bazoomas bouncing all over my TV screen.......

He he! You've got to love magpie, the working man's blue peter as it was once described.

Freelancer

Zebra3 wrote:

Usually there would be a huge RUC/British army presence at these funerals to try and stop any shots being fired over the coffin, etc but by pure chance the RUC only turned up as Stone was about to beaten to death. Coincidence? :rolleyes:

Oh pluzzeeee.

The RUC and British Army hung back, because, weirdly, they thought their presence at the funeral of an IRA man shot dead by the SAS, might, just might be seen as antagonistic.

Trying to shove this one on the bloody brits is a bit rich.

Days later, the two British soldiers bizarelly drove into the middle of one of the funerals of those Stone had killed and needless to say people weren't gonna let the same thing happened again. Given that one of the soldiers (neither were in uniform and they were in an unmarked car) turned a gun on the mourners, it was no surprise they were taken out and killed.

Oh for fúcks sake. They fired one warning shot into the air, they did not "turn a gun on the mourners" they paniced and shot a shot in the air.

These are just another in a long line of pointless stupid deaths in the north trying to garner some "politcal points" to justify your ignorance is childish and pointless.

minesajackdaniels wrote:

I remember watching that for the first time on the BBC One Northern Ireland news when I was a child and it had just happened. The images stuck with me throughout my life.

Ditto I was sitting in the front room of my uncles house in Donegal when I saw both the Stone attack and the murders, I don't need to see the video I remember it clear as day.

The RUC arrested a group of men for the murder of the soldiers and they were convicted, several years later most of them were released, as the convictions were seen as "unsafe" one of the men was either mildly autistic or mentally handicapped.

No one comes out of this looking well, the IRA for sending people to Gilbrator to carry out a bombing (I mean come on how's that going to help Ireland) Thatcher for her shoot to kill policy, and loyalists for attacking a funeral, the IRA for executing the men, and not coming forward when the wrong men were convicted for the crime. No one can point fingers at anyone after this.

Dyr

Freelancer wrote:

Oh pluzzeeee.

The RUC and British Army hung back, because, weirdly, they thought their presence at the funeral of an IRA man shot dead by the SAS, might, just might be seen as antagonistic.

Trying to shove this one on the bloody brits is a bit rich.

Last i heard Stone claimed that the RUC colluded in his attack. Still funny how the boys in blue arrived just in time to rescue him :rolleyes:

LikeOhMyGawd!

I'm new here but would like to contribute to this thread and to share some info that might be interesting.

I went to QUB and was in the Officers' Training Corps. Once during a drinking session after a shooting competition in Edinburgh I got speaking to a Colonel who had been stationed in Belfast at the time. We were generally talking about sacrifices made in the line of duty and he made quite a surprising admission. He told us that the two soldiers who drove into the cortege were members of the SAS and not Signallers as widely reported. They came off the motorway into West Belfast but took a wrong (left) turn into Andersonstown where they should have taken a right turn towards Milltown Cemetary and the barracks located there. As soon as they realised their mistake they radioed control to get assistance. As soon as they were hemmed in by the mourners some units based at the baracks were ready to get out and extracate them. The Army helicopter which was monitoring the whole thing was also prepared to descend to split the group up. The commanding officers in charge of the day's operation took the decision not to intervene fearing another bloodbath of Bloody Sunday proportions. In effect the soldiers were abandoned to their fate in order to avert a potentially more explosive situation.

Thank God time has moved on somewhat and the same should never to be seen again.

It would seem to me that other people have an agenda here (i.e. Magpie) and fail to understand that time has indeed moved on and democracy is starting to prevail. Gradually the slate is being wiped clean and each side is coming to terms with the past. Calling people or parties 'animals' is misguided and statements like

magpie wrote:

If I'd been in that car I would've emptied my magazine into the crowd and then floored it through them to escape

are hugely hypocritical and show an immense deal of ignorance.

Agree with them or not, the crowd consisted of numerous people burying their dead. Not everyone in that crowd had a hand in what happened and not everyone would have subscribed to what became of the men who were murdered.