State Violence (21 page)

Mrs McElhone then came down to the kitchen where her husband was sitting. After Paddy had gone out of her sight she heard very loud talk. She told her husband that he would have to go out and see what they were doing with Paddy. When he was out a few minutes, as she was crossing the kitchen floor, she heard one shot. She was ready to faint. She said, ‘Surely they didn't shoot Paddy'. She went out on to the street. She could hear her husband coming screaming and crying down the road. ‘Maggie,' he cried, ‘poor Paddy is after being shot dead.'

Peter McElhone said that when he went out he saw two soldiers with Paddy. One of them had him by the collar of the coat. He could not understand the soldiers' accent but he noticed that Paddy didn't answer them. They made Paddy run and followed him up the road into the hay field. Peter McElhone was not expecting his son to be shot. He did not see the soldier raise his rifle and shoot him. The second soldier turned and ran up past him. The other soldier shoved Paddy into the field. Peter at this time was standing on the road looking down into the hay field. He heard the shot and saw his son falling. He said to the soldier on the road, ‘What did you shoot my son for?' The soldiers told him they would shoot him too if he didn't go into the house. They wouldn't allow him into the field.

According to Lance Corporal Jones, he went to the door on his own initiative to ask McElhone to come out and talk to Sergeant Harrye. He brought him to the sergeant and went off about his business, taking no further notice. According to Harrye, McElhone gave his name as Michael. None of the soldiers heard raised voices. Harrye says he let him go. At that stage Jones came back and asked, ‘Have you not run a “P” check on McElhone?' Harrye said he hadn't. He asked Jones to go and fetch McElhone again.

Jones said that McElhone walked up the road away from the house and went into the field. He shouted something like, ‘Will you halt,' or ‘Halt a minute'. He said that McElhone did not react; he may not have been able to hear him because of the wind. McElhone walked on and entered the field. Jones was catching up on him. When Jones got to the gate, he said he shouted ‘Halt'. He said McElhone looked over his shoulder. He was six to seven yards away. He said McElhone made a break to run. Jones already had his rifle up. He said he fired from a distance of ten to twelve metres, a snap shot, and that it was the only way to stop him.

The weapon used in the shooting of Patrick McElhone was an SLR rifle. It has an effective range of 600 metres. One normally engages an enemy at 300 metres. To discharge at 25 yards would probably be fatal. Patrick McElhone was shot through the right scapula. There was a large exit wound over the heart. There was a very big pool of blood underneath the body. He lay face down on the field dead.

On 24 March 1975, Roy Alun Jones, on a Bill of Indictment 748/ 74 was charged with murder. It was alleged that on 7 August 1974 in the County of Tyrone that he murdered Patrick Anthony McElhone. He pleaded not-guilty to the charge. On 27 March 1977 he was found not guilty.

My account of Patrick McElhone's death first appeared in
Malairt
, No. 1, Winter 1977, an Irish language magazine, Queen's University, Belfast. It also appeared in English in a pamphlet The British Dimension published by Fr Denis Faul and myself in 1980.

The 14 August 1976 was a day of special remembrance for Nurse Alice Campbell of Crossmaglen, for it was on that day she was to be married to Brian Reavey of Whitecross. Alas Brian Reavey and his two brothers John Martin and Anthony were assassinated in January 1976. On the fourteenth morning of August 1976 Séamus Reavey, Brian's brother, collected her from her work at Daisy Hill Hospital, Newry, at 9am. They bought a wreath and went to pick up the father, James Reavey, and little Colleen his eight-year old daughter. They cut roses from the garden at the old Reavey home at Greyhilla, Whitecross, where Brian was assassinated. They arrived at Ballymoyer graveyard about 11am. Séamus noticed a group of soldiers in the hay-cut field beside the graveyard. By the time they were half-way down the path of the cemetery, the same soldiers had entered at the bottom left of the cemetery and met them on the path. The paratrooper in charge told Séamus Reavey that he wanted to see him when he was finished.

Artistic impression of the shooting.

They delayed in the graveyard some twenty minutes, thinking the soldiers might move off and leave them alone. But when they came out and Séamus unlocked the car door for the others, the paratrooper called Séamus in the foulest of language. This was witnessed by Hugh Kennon who had been stopped on the road by the British army. He remarked on it. The paratrooper kept Séamus about half-an-hour at a telegraph pole some thirty yards above the graveyard. There he put Séamus through deep agony, insulting the memory of his dead brothers. To the stranger this inhumanity is incredible but it is a common attitude of the British army to the oppressed Catholic community.

While they were talking, a group of children went by. Séamus Reavey says they looked happy. They were a group of ten children who were heading for their sodality Confessions at Ballymoyer chapel, some five hundred yards down the road. Mrs Murphy of the Orlitt Cottages, from where most of the children had come, had warned the bigger ones before they left not to pass any remarks to the British army. The four soldiers at the gate of the cut hay field, about forty-five yards below the graveyard gate, shouted some taunts, to which the children hardly replied. One of these soldiers lay on his stomach manning a machine-gun. This was the gun that killed Majella O'Hare.

At this stage two little girls aged eight and seven were some distance in front. They were followed by a boy of thirteen and the girl of sixteen. The rest of the eight children were stretched across the road, two of these lagging a little behind. Majella was second from the left-hand side of the road. She had the youngest child (three and a half) by the hand. There was a loud bang and Majella fell.

All the civilian witnesses are agreed that there was one single bang. They describe it as ‘loud', like an ‘explosion'. Mrs Teresa Murphy says, ‘I heard the shot, a bang with a tail on it, not a sharp clear sound, but very loud.' This is an accurate description of a firing from a machine-gun which can fire 800 rounds a minute. The lightest touch will discharge 3 shots. And this is what happened. The paratrooper discharged 3 shots. Two of the bullets penetrated Majella's back and came out through her stomach. The bullets ploughed up the heap of gravel in front of the trailer which was parked on the road verge.

On the day before, Friday, Majella and some friends had spent the day at Gyles Quay, a favourite seaside spot near Dundalk. She intended going back to spend the weekend there with neighbours. So she refused the offer of a day's shopping with her mother and her brother Michael in Newry. She had waved goodbye to them at 10.30 that morning. Before she set out for Confessions, she left a note for her mother saying that she would be back from Gyles Quay on Sunday night.

James O'Hare, Majella's father, had gone to do some work at St Malachy's school which is beside the chapel at 10.00am. There were no soldiers then. But some time later six soldiers came out of the Rectory Lane opposite the chapel gate. They went up the road towards the graveyard. He had seen the Reaveys up the road and was worried for them when they were stopped by the soldiers coming out of the graveyard. He was keeping an eye out as he worked on the grass verge in front of St Malachy's school. He saw the children coming down the road to Confessions. Below the height he was able to make them out and he recognised Majella among them.

Then he heard a bang and saw a child fall. He ran towards them and found the little girl dying. Majella was the darling of her parents' heart. She had been born some years after the other members of the family, Michael, Marie and Margarita. She was the love of their home. While comforting the child he was badly abused by some of the paratroopers.

When the gun was fired there was a lot of confusion on the road. The children were screaming. The soldiers were shouting. One of the paratroopers ran down the road. Another soldier, a marine, came out of the bushes near where the child lay. The Reaveys and Alice Campbell took cover with the rest. Una Murphy, the sixteen-year old girl who was the eldest in the party of girls described the incident, ‘When we crossed the brow of the hill, the soldiers were lying at the gate of Hugh Kennon's field on our right, three maybe four, two on their stomachs, two sitting back. They had guns – one was black with a thick barrel, then thin. We did not speak but they spoke to us. One asked were we going for Communion – to visit our God. This man had very brown eyes and black hair. He was sweating a lot. We ignored them and then they said, “You don't speak to the likes of us”. We pretended to be speaking among ourselves.

‘We walked down the road. Then there was this big bang. Stones started to fly up from up in front of us. The young ones started to scream and Majella gave a scream and fell. She fell on her stomach. She was wearing a nylon blouse and skirt. A hole appeared in the blouse on the right hand side of her back. We all stood there looking at her. We did not know what to do. A paratrooper came running down the hill and Jim O'Hare came running up the road from the Chapel. He knelt on the road and put his arms around her. The soldiers told Jim to take his fucking hands off her. Jim said, “This is the only wee girl I have left”. The soldier said, “I don't give a fuck” and he told us to get up the road.'

When there was no more firing, the Reaveys finally persuaded the soldiers to let Alice Campbell, a nurse, attend Majella. She did all she could for her. Fr Peter Hughes had arrived just before twelve for Confessions. When he heard from a soldier that a little girl was shot, he rushed to spiritually attend her.

Alice Campbell describes the rough treatment towards Majella in throwing her into the helicopter with her legs dangling out, and indeed she was almost falling out when the helicopter lifted. Here is part of Alice Cambell's statement:

‘As Séamus was putting his keys into the door of the car, a paratrooper roared at him, “Come up here Séamus Reavey or I'll knock the fucking head off you.” Séamus said, “No need to shout, I'm not going away.” I put Colleen into the back and I got into the passenger seat. Séamus went over to the paratrooper who was standing at the pole at the right hand side of the road in the direction of the chapel. I was crying in the front of the car after coming up from the grave. The car was pointing away from the chapel. Mr Reavey was standing at the passenger door.

‘I heard a loud bang from behind me. I thought it was an explosion. Then I thought they had shot Séamus. I heard Séamus roar, “Duck!” I pushed Colleen down in the back and I lay down in the front. Séamus then crawled down and opened the door of the car and told me to crawl out and lie alongside the wall beside Mr Reavey and the soldier. This soldier shouted, “That's an Armalite”. Jimmy Reavey said, “But there's children away down that road. Let me go down.” The soldier roared, “No! lie where you are.” He pleaded with him once more but he still insisted on him lying where he was.

‘One of the soldiers from the lower part of the road came up and said, “There's a child been hurt”. I then said to Mr Reavey, “Perhaps I could do something for her”. Mr Reavey asked the soldier to let me go down but he would not. Mr Reavey said I was a nurse. After five minutes the soldier took me down by the hand to where the child was lying on the road. Someone had taken the father to the side. The child was lying on her back. A wound was visible on her abdomen (exit wound). I tried to deal with this. She was semi-conscious and groaning. I was tilting her chin with my hand to give her more air and she pushed my hand aside and muttered, “Don't do that”. The soldier who was assisting me kept saying. “That is your fucking Provos for you”.

‘Fr Hughes arrived and came out of his car. The soldier that was assisting me said, “There he is again. He is always stuck in it.” Fr Hughes said prayers over her. A local man, Barry Malone, was driving past. The same soldier, who was hysterical, gave an unmerciful yell and said, “There's what your fucking Provos do, there it is for you – look”. Then he thumped the top of the car and said, “Drive on to fucking hell”.

‘About ten minutes later the helicopter arrived. The father was put in first. The girl was put in head first with her legs dangling out. I was kneeling with my red trousered legs out of the helicopter, holding on to a strap. With the help of the father I tried to get her head up. I thumped the soldier on the back and told him to bring the child's legs in and he did so. He said, “It'll only take five minutes. We have a doctor standing by”. I started to give her the kiss of life in the helicopter and I told the father to start saying the Act of Contrition.

‘When we landed I saw a surgeon and called him. I carried Majella into the casualty department. There were three doctors present. One put a stethoscope to her heart and got a heart beat. Another doctor applied a stethoscope and said, “She's gone off”. I went to the main entrance and I met Mrs O'Hare, Majella's mother and she kept saying, “Tell me please, honest, is she dead, is she dead?” I couldn't tell her. Fr Hughes came on the scene and told her.'