Newry solemn service marks 40 years since Troubles' deadliest attack on police
A solemn service today (2nd) marked the 40th anniversary of the deadliest attack on the police during the Troubles.
On February 28, 1985, the IRA launched a lethal mortar attack on a Newry RUC station, murdering nine officers and wounding 37 others.
Shelling the base nine times, including its outbuilding canteen where many officers were having their evening tea break, the attack was the deadliest incident the RUC suffered.
The nine dead officers ranged in age from 19 to 41; both Protestants and Catholics were murdered in the attack, seven of them men and two women.
Of the wounded, 25 were civilian staff, while 12 were serving police.
The day was dubbed “Bloody Thursday” by the British press, and the attack was condemned by the prime ministers of both the UK and Ireland.
Today, Newry came together to remember the dead and mark the horror of the day.
The RUC George Cross Foundation joined forces with victim and survivor support group the South East Fermanagh Foundation (SEFF) and the Newry and Mourne Local Voluntary Welfare Group to organise an event designed to honour and commemorate officers cruelly cut down in the attack.
Attended by high-ranking police officers including PSNI Chief Constable Jon Boutcher, this afternoon’s service in First Newry Presbyterian Church proved a solemn marker of the bloody anniversary.
SEFF director Kenny Donaldson told the News Letter the event was "very challenging” as it brought together the bereaved, injured survivors and first responders.
"The service was sombre in tone, but there was also a thread of hope which ran through,” he said. “Those gathered were reminded of lives well lived, and of nine extraordinary men and women from across our community who gave their all in standing against the scourge of terrorism.
“All were reminded today that within a single 12-month period, 15 RUC officers who were connected to Newry command were brutally slaughtered by Provisional IRA terrorists.
"[In total] 302 RUC officers and 2 PSNI officers have paid the supreme sacrifice. I ask the question - have we always done right by them, or have we failed? Whether that’s in delivering justice and accountability, to sufficiently supporting their families or, importantly, defending their legacy and their good name.”
Mr Donaldson went on to call for a memorial to the dead at the former site of the police station on Newry’s Corry Square, to act as a focal point for remembrance.
“This is necessary so that the wider public, visitors near and far might understand the gravity of what occurred, and that families and injured survivors might also have have somewhere to come to in order to reflect,” he said.
“We issue a challenge that focus must come on the need for Troubles education and for the RUC George Cross family to proactively pursue this, accessing schools and other institutions of learning, engaging with young people around the realities of policing and what the role entailed over the years of the terrorist campaign.”
He added that the presence of senior police officers at the memorial service was a boon for bereaved families, as it “illustrates that the officers remembered continue to be viewed as an integral part of the policing family”.