Bear in mind these dead...
An Index of Deaths from the Conflict in
Ireland
1969-1993
Malcolm Sutton Beyond
the Pale Publications,
Belfast
. £9.95 ISBN 0 9514229 4 4
THERE ARE FEW people in
Ulster
who have not been touched in some way by the effect of the
national conflict which has been going on in our country for the past quarter of
a century. We all remember the deaths of friends and workmates and especially
those of members of our families at the hands of one or other of the parties to
the conflict. The rest, unless they were prominent in public life in some way or
another, are generally forgotten statistics to everyone but their immediate
friends and relations. Now at last we have this permanent reminder of all those
who have had their lives taken from them in the course of `the troubles'.
Malcolm Sutton has been compiling
information on all deaths in the conflict since the mid 1980s. When he started
he had no idea of the enormity of the task. For example, the official statistics
take no notice of deaths outside the six counties of
Northern Ireland
. Thus the victims of the
Dublin
and Monaghan bombings in 1974, the
Warrington
children in 1993 and the soldier killed by a booby trap bomb
under his car in
Hanover
,
Germany
in 1989 are not counted. Mr Sutton, quite rightly in my
opinion, thought that this approach was illogical and has included all the
victims, whether or not they actually lost their lives in
Ulster
itself or not.
The main part of the book lists the
victims in chronological order from 67 year‑old Francis McCloskey who died
from injuries inflicted by an RUC man's baton on
July 14th 1969
to 23 year‑old Daniel Blinco, a British soldier who
met his death from an IRA sniper's bullet on
December 30th 1993
. Mr Sutton has taken great pains to establish the personal
details of each of the victims, the agency responsible for each death where
known and the circumstances of the killing. He also lists the status of each
victim, that is their perceived religion and other affiliations if any. As he
says, all the information is in the public domain, so it should be possible to
check the details of each entry. However, the test I am using is more personal,
I'm looking up some of the entries for people whom I knew who became targets for
terrorists.
September 1988
Colin Abernethy (30) Civ (PA) IRA Ulster
Clubs member. Shot while travelling on train to his workplace, Finaghy,
Belfast
.
March 1990
William McClure (44) Civ (P) IPLO Shot
at his home,
Skegoneill Avenue
, Skegoneill,
Belfast
.
On the basis of these two entries I can
say that the information is accurate, if sparse. It correctly says that Colin
Abernethy was a PA, that is a Protestant political activist. Billy McClure was
not a political activist but an uninvolved Protestant. Both were well known to
me, one through politics, the other through work and the trade union movement.
The entries report which organisations murdered these men but not why. They also
cannot say what kind of men the victims were. How did they live? Who was left
behind to grieve for them? Some weeks before his death, Billy McClure dressed up
outrageously to collect money for the BBC Children in Need appeal. He had a
lively and sharp sense of humour. This will be recalled by those who knew Billy
but it can't be seen just by a casual reading of this book. However, each of the
normally faceless and nameless statistics has had a name and a place in society
and Mr Sutton has done a praiseworthy job in reminding us all of this. Just
browsing through my copy has brought to mind incidents and occasions which I had
forgotten, some which happened close to home.
In the appendix to this book, there is a
very useful statistical summary. Of the total deaths to the end of 1993, 3059
Gave occurred in Northern Ireland, 91 in the Irish Republic, 118 in Great
Britain and 17 elsewhere in Europe. Republican groups have been responsible for
1926 of the deaths, loyalist groups for 911, the security forces for 357, the
Eire security forces for three. The author has not been able to give a positive
identity for the perpetrators of the remaining 88 deaths. In some cases this is
because they died in street disturbances, others were republican hunger strikers
who died in prison.
This is a valuable book and I commend
the author and Beyond the Pale Publications for publishing it. I hope that it
will not require much future revision or many new editions; something which I'm
sure the author will have in common with me. This is one area of research and
publishing where it would be great to be declared redundant.
David Kerr
home
page