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

Using a covername, the IRA shot 11 Protestant factory workers as they travelled home by minibus at Kingsmills in south Armagh on 5 January 1976. Only one survived.

The Historical Enquiries Team (HET) concluded that it had been a “purely sectarian” attack that was planned long in advance, amidst wider tit-for-tat murders. The sole Catholic man in the van was pulled out by the IRA and chased away before it started shooting.

HET said the attack was planned from south of the border and that the gang fled there afterwards for safety. The getaway van and three weapons were later found in the republic by Gardai.

A legacy inquest into the atrocity began in 2014 and is still ongoing. Most families walked away when it declined to name deceased suspects. According to the families, the only significant participation by the Irish authorities was a secret court hearing in Dublin last year which was closed to them and the media.The families have been given a report on the outcome but are legally forbidden from sharing it with the media.

South Armagh victims group FAIR is holding a memorial for those killed at the scene of the atrocity on the anniversary, 5 January, at 10:45am.

Speaking ahead of the event, Co Armagh TUV councillor Keith Ratcliffe said: "Even by the brutal standards of the blood soaked IRA, Kingsmills stands out as a particularly savage and callous act. Here were men returning from their place of work taken out and shot because of their religion. Their only crime was that they were Protestants.

“While Dublin plans to take the UK to the European Court over its legacy plans the Republic has failed to live up to its obligations. No case more graphically illustrates this than Kingsmill where southern authorities have repeatedly stymied attempts to get to the truth about what happened that dreadful day.

“It is worth remembering too that to this day the Provisional movement have never admitted carrying out the massacre. That hasn’t, of course, prevented Sinn Fein from grossly insulting victims by naming a play park after Raymond McCreesh, an IRA terrorist arrested with a rifle used in the Kingsmills Massacre.”

A spokesman for the Irish Department of Justice said Dublin had cooperated extensively with the inquest.

However he did not mention the secrecy which keeps the Dublin court hearing report barred from public consumption.

“The Irish Government’s has given a commitment is to cooperate with the Coroner to the greatest extent possible, within the law,” he said.

"We have followed through on that commitment and, in fact, we have taken unprecedented legal measures to facilitate co-operation in circumstances where no structured framework was in place to do so.”

In June 2015 Garda records were transferred to the Northern Ireland Coroner and further requests for disclosure have been substantively responded to by An Garda Síochána.

The Irish authorities also passed legislation in 2019 to allow Garda to give evidence to the NI inquest, he said, which happened in the secret Dublin court hearing.