Daily Mirror (Northern Ireland)
We thought we were facing a massacre
1971 shootings probe told of ‘Army failings’
RESIDENTS should have been protected by soldiers during a mass shooting – but instead hid fearing a massacre, an inquest has heard.
Eilish Meehan was 19 in 1971 as she helped evacuate children from Springfield Park close to a developing flashpoint in West Belfast.
She told an inquest that people in the area had come under attack by loyalists and some had gone to the Henry Taggart barracks to ask for protection. As the shooting intensified, she found shelter with others close to flats in Moyard.
Fr Hugh Mullan, 38, and teenager Frank Quinn, 19, were shot dead.
Ms Meehan said news of the priest’s death spread like wildfire among those sheltering from the gunfire.
She added: “We thought we were going to be overrun, we thought we were going to be massacred.
“We had nothing to fight back against these crazy people shooting at us and we didn’t know why. I hadn’t a clue why we were being shot at, I am a citizen, I expect protection, people had gone to the barracks to ask for protection, that protection never came.”
Ms Meehan was giving evidence to an inquest that is examining a series of shootings in which 10 people died.
The events from August 9 to 11 have become known as the Ballymurphy Massacre and started after the introduction of internment on August 9.
Soldiers have long been blamed for killing all the victims but the accepted narrative became clouded last year when former UVF members claimed their organisation was also involved.
Ms Meehan said a crowd had gathered to the rear of Springfield Park and someone shouted “they are coming in”, in reference to loyalists in Springmartin.
There was a single shotgun blast, which she described as a “warning shot”.
The inquest at Belfast Coroner’s Court continues.