Almost 50 years after the callous and openly sectarian IRA massacre at Kingsmills, the murders remain unsolved

It is telling that so close to the dawn of a new year we have an annual reminder of the evil of republican terrorism.

Forty seven years ago yesterday 12 men were lined up on the side of the road after they were stopped on their way home from work by what they assumed was an army patrol. The only Roman Catholic in the group was asked to identify himself and when he did so was told to leave. The remaining workmen, all Protestants, were then viciously mown down in a hail of machine gun fire. Miraculously, one of the men survived.

Even by the brutal standards of the IRA the callous and openly sectarian nature of the murders stands out. Yet almost half a century later the murders remain unsolved. Indeed, the IRA continue to deny involvement in the massacre and the Irish government have displayed a telling reluctance to cooperate with investigations into the murders.

It is even worse than that. Victims of this atrocity have repeatedly had to endure insults heaped upon their heads. In 2018 Barry McElduff mocked them in the crudest fashion imaginable by parading round with a loaf of Kingsmill bread on his head on the anniversary of the massacre. In any normal country this would see the end of any involvement in public life. Yet McElduff is the current chairman of Fermanagh and Omagh Council.

Remarkably, in Newry a childrens’ play park has been named after Raymond McCreesh, an IRA terrorist who was arrest while in possession of one of the weapons used to carry out the Kingsmills massacre. This was not some unofficial naming but something which has been rubber-stamped by the local council.

Such glorification of someone linked to such a brutal sectarian massacre is scarcely imaginable but it is exactly the sort of thing which the minority community in this area have been forced to accept.

I am passionate about obtaining justice for innocent victims. The Belfast Agreement has made that very difficult yet I’m keen to ensure that the powers that be are held to account when events such as Kingsmills are overlooked, ignored or as has shamefully happened in the past celebrated.

Keith Ratcliffe, TUV, Newry and Armagh