Garda files still not handed over to Kingsmills’ coroner, say families

GARDA intelligence about that the gang who carried out the Kingsmill massacre and who are believed to have fled to County Louth in the wake of the 1976 attack has not been handed over to the coroner in Belfast, despite a promise of ‘full disclosure’ made in 2015 by Taoiseach Enda Kenny.

The IRA shot ten Protestant workmen near Kingsmills in south Armagh in 1976. The Historical Enquiries Team (HET) said the IRA fled ‘ back to Louth’ afterwards.

After several years of pressure for disclosure, Mr Kenny met the Kingsmills families in Bessbrook in March 2015 and said that his most sensitive files may not be released but that he would allow the Belfast coroner to view them in Dublin for the legacy inquest. The Coroners Service said it could not comment on the matter as it was not present at the meeting, however it is understood it was unaware of the until last week. The sole survivor of the atrocity, Alan Black, told the News Letter in Belfast: ‘Enda Kenny told us in Bessbrook - ‘I am looking you in the eye and I am promising full disclosure’.’

Mr Black said that four weapons used at Kingsmills, later recovered by Garda, have not been mentioned in Dublin’s disclosure to date - nor has any intelligence about the IRA suspects. ‘ The Taoiseach was standing there with three or four advisors at the time. He spoke with them and said there could be problems sending some papers out of his jurisdiction and if so he would facilitate the Belfast coroner to travel to Dublin to look at them. But now it seems they must have just decided not to do it. It is cruel in the extreme’.