Declassified files: MP's call for excommunication of IRA members picked up by diplomat

The suggestion in Parliament by independent Unionist MP Jim Kilfedder came days after one of the most high-profile double killings when Army corporals Derek Wood and David Howes were beaten and shot dead by a mob after they inadvertently drove into an IRA funeral.

The two soldiers were surrounded by the crowd when they drove into the funeral cortege of Kevin Brady, an IRA man killed in Milltown Cemetery by the loyalist Michael Stone while attending the funerals of the three IRA members shot dead by the SAS at Gibraltar in March 1988.

A memo written by an Irish government official following a debate in the House of Commons about the murders has been declassified in Dublin.

The official said that Mr Kilfedder raised the possibility of a church excommunication of IRA terrorists, which “might in consequence reduce their funerals to very modest affairs”.

Moments before the two British corporals were dragged from their car, Mr Wood drew his pistol and fired a warning into the air, but it did not deter the crowd from surrounding the vehicle.

Former DUP leader Peter Robinson suggested that the soldiers had refrained from opening fire because of fear of repercussions and asked the secretary of state to make clear that he would stand behind any members of the security forces who had to defend their lives in such circumstances.

It also emerged from the state papers that the British joint secretary told an Irish government official there was a prospect of a public controversy “looming between the RUC and ITN and BBC” over RUC access to the television tapes of the killings.

Broadcast networks that were covering the funeral refused to hand over the footage to the RUC, saying it would endanger the lives of journalists. “He said that ITN had agreed to give the RUC access while the BBC had refused,” he wrote.

News coverage of the funeral later became central to the case and helped convict Harry Maguire and Alex Murphy, who were both jailed for the 1988 attack.