‘The Mocking Season’

A BANNER praising the exploits of unionist sectarian killer Billy Wright has provoked anger among nationalists in the north Armagh and east Tyrone area of the North where his loyalist death squads operated.

The banner, which appeared in the run-up to this year’s ‘marching season’, has been erected near a loyalist bonfire in the Eastvale area of Dungannon and  bears the image of Wright who is described as a “brigadier” and carries the boast that “Cappagh was probably our best”.

The gloating reference is to the 1991 attack on Boyle’s Bar in the small east Tyrone village that left three IRA Volunteers – John Quinn, Dwayne O’Donnell and Malcolm Nugent – dead as well as civilian Tommy Armstrong.

In a report on the Cappagh attack published in March this year, the human rights NGO Relatives for Justice claimed there was collusion between British crown forces and the loyalist killers and that Wright was centrally involved.

The Wright banner is similar to the one erected a year ago in the nearby village of Moygashel, to ‘honour’ Ulster Volunteer Force bomber Wesley Somerville, a serving member of the British Army’s Ulster Defence Regiment, who was killed by his own bomb in July 1975 along with three members of the Miami Showband in a premature explosion.

Somerville and a second UVF man, Harris Boyle, were killed as the bomb they were planting in the band’s minivan exploded. Musicians Fran O’Toole, Anthony Geraghty and Brian McCoy were also killed in the ambush.

In a statement released on behalf of the Cappagh families, Mark Thompson, Director of Relatives for Justice, said no one should engage in this type of “provocative and depraved” behaviour.

“It is designed to cause further hurt to already grieving families,” he said.

“There is no doubt it is a hate crime.”

Speaking to An Phoblacht, Mid Ulster Sinn Féin MP Francie Molloy said:

“This behaviour exposes the sectarian nature of the so-called marching season and the lack leadership of people within the unionist body politic and the Orange Order who refuse to challenge these actions.

“It is more a case of the mocking season that the marching season.”

Molloy also highlighted the lack of action by the authorities, especially the PSNI, which is in stark contrast to the willingness to “tear down” a republican memorial in Carnlough recently, he said.

The news that the banner erected “In Proud Memory” of loyalist death squad leader Billy Wright came on the 20th anniversary of the Loyalist Volunteer Force killing of Lurgan taxi driver Michael McGoldrick at the height of the Drumcree dispute over an Orange Order march.

Wright had been expelled from the UVF and so he set up the Loyalist Volunteer Force. It was this group under Wright's command who shot McGoldrick dead on 8 July 1996.

According to one of the LVF gun gang, Clifford McKeown, the killers dedicated the sectarian murder to Wright “as a birthday present”.

The Drumcree dispute arose after nationalist residents of the Garvaghy Road in Portadown, County Armagh, objected to the annual Orange Order parade through their area.

The dispute led to serious rioting at the scene at British Army and RUC barriers set up to block the Orange parade.

As the Orange Order – supported by the main unionist parties and backed by loyalist paramilitary groups – mobilised, the North witnessed some of the most intense intimidation of nationalists since the 1974 Ulster Workers’ Council general strike.

At least eight people – including Michael McGoldrick, Lurgan-based human rights lawyer Rosemary Nelson, and Portadown man Robert Hamill – were killed as a direct result of the Drumcree dispute with Wright’s LVF death squad directly involved in most the attacks.

Drumcree death toll

• Michael McGoldrick, shot dead, July 1996.
• Robert Hamill, kicked to death, April 1997.
• Bernadette Martin, shot dead, July 1997.
• Adrian Lamph, shot dead, April 1998.
• The Quinn children, petrol-bombed, July 1998.
• Frankie O’Reilly blast-bomb attack, October 1998.
• Rosemary Nelson, car-bomb attack, March 1999.
• Elizabeth O’Neill, pipe-bomb attack, June 1999.

See An Phoblacht, 10 June 1999.