Enniskillen deserves investigation like Bloody Sunday: victims' daughter

She was speaking after it emerged British soldiers may be charged with murder over Bloody Sunday.

Margaret Veitch’s parents, William and Agnes Mullan, were both killed in the ‘Poppy Day’ bombing, something Margaret says has “haunted” her ever since.

Recently it emerged that the Public Prosecution Service (PPS) is considering a range of charges, including murder and attempted murder, against 18 soldiers over their involvement in Bloody Sunday.

A spokesperson for the PPS said: “Investigation files in relation to Bloody Sunday were passed to the PPS in December 2016 and are presently under active consideration.

“No prosecution decision has yet been taken in relation to these files and it is likely to be some time before any decision will issue.”

Ms Veitch said there are similarities between Bloody Sunday and the Enniskillen bombing in that both saw “innocent people on the street” killed, but that the Bloody Sunday families have had the killing of their loved ones “investigated thoroughly”, unlike Enniskillen.

Ms Veitch said: “Bloody Sunday can in some ways be equated with Enniskillen because it was ordinary innocent people on the street, but the fact is they have had an inquiry.

“What about our families? Where is our inquiry? My mother and father went to their death. They had no choice. They say there is no hierarchy of victims...”

She added: “We have absolutely been forgotten about. They don’t care. We are no threat. What is wrong with us? Is it because we sit back with dignity and we don’t make a fuss?

“I bear no ill will for the Bloody Sunday families but they have had the killing of their loved ones investigated thoroughly. I want to see that for Enniskillen.”

Margaret described her continued suffering.

“My father and mother went out after doing a day’s work on a Saturday and they locked the shop,” she said. “They were ordinary, decent, working people. The bomb was planted a day or so before.

“It was premeditated. It was on purpose. If somebody goes out and plants a bomb, what do they intend to do with it? It was meant to kill. My father and mother died on the street. There was no inquiry. The IRA admitted to it. They said it was ‘a mistake’. Well you can rub out a mistake. That has haunted me for my entire life.”

Ms Veitch continued: “I have to sit back and listen as everybody gets prosecuted while mammy and daddy get nothing. The IRA get honoured, they get glorified. They have got off with it. It is soul destroying.

“When you hear of that murderer who died, Ian Brady, he gloated until the day he died. I don’t understand how anybody can gloat.

“It was horrific what the IRA did. I am hurt to my core. I had the most wonderful parents and I am not going to go to my grave after giving up on them.”