Memorial to Irish army private and trainee policeman, brutally killed by the IRA during an infamous kidnap case manhunt in 1983, unveiled in County Leitrim
A memorial to members of the Irish security forces killed by the IRA while on duty has been unveiled in County Leitrim.
Defence Forces Private Patrick Kelly and trainee Garda Gary Sheehan were investigating an infamous abduction that shook the island of Ireland in 1983.
Having tracked the IRA kidnappers of supermarket executive Don Tidey to a hideout in isolated County Leitrim woods, the two men were killed when the culprits opened fire as the security forces approached. No one has ever been brought to justice for their deaths.
Today, 41 years to the day since they were killed, the two men were honoured with a memorial erected outside a police station in Ballinamore, the nearest town to the scene of the fatal shootings.
Speaking to the Irish Times, Private Kelly’s eldest son David said his family are moved to see the name of a man they still mourn every day inscribed on a permanent monument to his heroic sacrifice.
“He was murdered in the line of duty by Provisional IRA terrorists,” said David. “The sense of injustice that no one has been held accountable for his murder is still raw.
“The monument in Ballinamore means that a concrete place exists where we can remember and reflect upon the service and sacrifice of our father and Garda Gary Sheehan.”
The memorial sculpture was inspired by stones of the Irish landscape that symbolise healing and endurance.
It features two chambers of a heart, one representing the gardai and the other the Defence Forces, with a void between marking the loss of Patrick Kelly and Gary Sheehan.
Hundreds of people turned out for the unveiling ceremony, as well as attending a special tribute Mass held in a nearby church.
During the service, the head chaplain of the Defence Forces, Father Paschal Hanrahan, paid tribute to the two men.
"We remember their incredible service to our country, we remember the sacrifice that they paid, we remember the profound sense of loss experienced by their families,” he said.
Chief Superintendent Aidan Glacken of the Irish police’s Sligo/Leitrim Division described the ceremony as “a deeply significant event held to honour the memory of two men who gave their lives in service to their country”.
The abduction of Don Tidey was one of a spate of IRA kidnappings in the early 1980s, ordered by paramilitary leaders to raise money.
It sparked the largest manhunt the Republic of Ireland had ever seen, the army joining forces with the police to track him down.
Mr Tidey, at that point the managing director and chairman of supermarket chain Quinnsworth, was taken from a spot close to his suburban Dublin home in late November 1983.
On December 16 that year, the security forces tracked him and his kidnappers down to a hideout in Drumcornan Wood near Ballinamore.
During the operation, the IRA gang opened fire, shooting dead 36-year-old Private Kelly and 23-year-old Garda Sheehan. Mr Tidey was able to escape in the chaos.
The Kelly family have campaigned for justice ever since, with David Kelly famously confronting Martin McGuinness in person when the Sinn Fein man ran for the Irish presidency in 2011.