Kingsmills Massacre anniversary: ‘My son changed his name to honour his granda’

​​A south Armagh woman has told how her son changed his name when he was 18 in order to preserve the name of the grandfather who was murdered in the Kingsmills Massacre.
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By Philip Bradfield
Published 5th Jan 2024, 18:42 BST
Updated 5th Jan 2024, 19:01 BST

Shirley Norris is the daughter of Joseph Lemmon, who was 46 when he was gunned down by the IRA with nine other Protestant colleagues as they drove home in a minibus from the Bessbrook factory where they worked on 5 January 1976. She was speaking at the 48th anniversary service at the location of the atrocity.

"My father was murdered a month before I was due to get married," she told the News Letter. "The day he was shot I had taken my twin nieces into Newry to get their flower girl dresses and they were so excited to show them to their granda.

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"But their granda never saw them and my son never had a chance to know his grandfather either."

Shirley Norris said her father, Joseph Lemmon, ever got a chance to walk her down the aisle as he was murdered only one month before her wedding at Kingsmills.Shirley Norris said her father, Joseph Lemmon, ever got a chance to walk her down the aisle as he was murdered only one month before her wedding at Kingsmills.
Shirley Norris said her father, Joseph Lemmon, ever got a chance to walk her down the aisle as he was murdered only one month before her wedding at Kingsmills.

Kingsmills Massacre anniversary: Dublin still blocking full truth of what happened in IRA's sectarian murder of 10 Protestant factory workers, says TUV

She feels upset about the murder every day.

“They took my father from me. He never had the chance to see me marry or walk me up the aisle."

She named her son Joseph after her father. But when he turned 18 he changed his surname from Norris to Lemmon in honour of his grandfather as there were no other men to carry on the family name. “I was so proud of him,” she added.

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May Quinn remembered her brother Robert Walker, aged 46. "He was a lovely man," she said. "He would have helped everybody.”

As usual, he called with his mother that morning for some friend soda bread. Reflecting on the high rate of murders at the time, his last words as he left her were: “Dear knows who'll go down tonight.”

Jacqueline Semple, sister of Kenneth Worton who was killed aged 24, said all they got back from her brother was his lunchbox.

And what made the grieving even more difficult was that they never got to see his body.

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"His coffin was never opened because he got it all in the face. He would have been the first one one to block the shooting to try and save the ones in the back."

The legacy inquest into the atrocity, which began in 2014, is still ongoing. Most of the families walked away as the coroner declined to name dead suspects with IRA convictions.

He cited the risk to associates of the dead republicans as his reason.

Garda held a secret court hearing in Dublin last year to address written questions from the families – but the families themselves were not allowed to attend. They have been warned they are legally prohibited from making a report on the hearing public.