OFFICERS WERE KILLED WHEN RAIDERS OPENED FIRE ON THEM
SHORTLY after 2.45pm on July 7, 1980, a white Ford Cortina struck a Garda squad car outside Ballaghaderreen in Co. Roscommon.
The men in the Ford had just held up a Bank of Ireland branch in the town and were travelling at speed, hoping to escape with the IR£41,000 they had stolen.
Inside the squad car were two Castlereabased gardaí – Henry Byrne and John Morley – who were responding to an emergency call following the robbery.
After the smash, the bank robbers got out their vehicle and two of them opened fire on the gardaí.
Garda Byrne did not make it out of his seat before he was gunned down in a hail of bullets.
Born in 1950 in Knock, Co. Mayo, he was married with two children. His wife was pregnant with their third child at the time of the robbery
Detective Morley, a former Mayo county footballer, returned fire with his Uzi submachine gun but he was fatally wounded in the gun battle.
The detective has also been born in Knock, in 1942, and was married with two sons, Shane and Gordon, and one daughter, Gillian. He was a talented sportsman, having played in 112 league and championship games for Mayo.
Two men, Colm O’Shea and Paddy McCann, were arrested by gardaí close to the scene of the Roscommon shooting within hours of the robbery. O’Shea had suffered a gunshot wound to his chest during the gun fight with Garda Morley.
The brutal murder of two popular and hardworking gardaí horrified the nation and left six children without a father.
After a three-day trial in October 1980, O’Shea and McCann were convicted of capital murder and sentenced to death.
However, the following year, Patrick Hillery, who was then president, acted on advice from the Government and commuted the death sentences to 40 years in prison for each man.
O’Shea and McCann were on the fringes of Irish republican groups and claimed they carried out the raid to fund these organisations.
The pair later unsuccessfully appealed to be released under the terms of the Good Friday Agreement in 1998.
Last year, O’Shea lodged a High Court appeal against his continued detention but it was turned down by Mr Justice John Edwards, who ruled O’Shea was detained lawfully.
McCann, who remains in jail, controversially claimed four years ago he had ordered murders from his prison cell.
‘Since I’ve come to prison I’ve killed more than I killed when I was outside,’ he said.