40th anniversary of Newry IRA mortar attack which killed nine Protestant and Catholic RUC officers - and injured 25 members of the public
Bereaved families, injured survivors and their supporters will attend a memorial service this weekend to remember nine RUC officers from across the community who were murdered in an IRA mortar attack on Newry police station 40 years ago today (28 February 1985).
It was the single most deadly IRA attack on RUC men and women during the Troubles - killing both Protestant and Catholic officers.
As well as the nine dead, 37 others were injured by the attack - 25 of them members of the public.
The lorry used had been hijacked in Crossmaglen and fired seven mortars. Six of them flew over the tops of neighbourhood homes and landed outside the police station walls, where they injured the public.
One mortar cleared the walls and landed on a mobile building used as a police canteen, causing carnage.
A Newry man was later convicted of nine counts of manslaughter and given five years in prison.
The murdered officers were;-
1. Alexander Donaldson, 41-year-old, married with 3 children.
2. Geoffrey K. Campbell, 24-year-old, married.
3. John Thomas Dowd, 31-year-old, married.
4. Denis Anthony Price, 22-year-old, single.
5. Rosemary Elizabeth McGookin, 27-year-old, married.
6. Sean Brian McHenry, 19-years-old, single.
7. David Peter Topping, 22-year-old, single.
8. Paul Hillery McFerran, 33-year-old, single.
9. Ivy Winifred Kelly, 29-year-old, married.
The memorial service in their memory takes place on Sunday 2 March at 2.30pm in Sandys Street Presbyterian Church in Newry, organised by the South East Fermanagh Foundation (SEFF), RUC GC branches and Newry and Mourne Local Voluntary Welfare Group. The PSNI Ladies Choir, incorporating the RUC GC Ladies Choir, will perform at the event.
SEFF Director Director Kenny Donaldson said: "The mortar bomb attack upon Newry Police Station remains one of the lasting images of the terrorist campaign, the scale of loss for the policing family was huge, seven men and two women from across the community fell together having served together, committed to upholding the rule of law and of disrupting the activities of committed terrorists."
"Many of the young officers had not had the opportunity of getting married, nor of starting a family, they were cut down in their prime years with those murdered ranging from just 19 years through to 41," he added.
He added that the lack of accountability around this atrocity also causes "additional pain" for those left behind.
"This case has never received focus from national or international governments, nor does it feature in the folklore of this place."
The killers, he said, "were led by a narrow and exclusivist political ideology which provided for the murder of one neighbour by another".
DUP Leader on the Policing Board Trevor Clarke MLA said people throughout Northern Ireland will have paused to mark the fortieth anniversary of the attack.
Mr Clarke said: “These nine officers represented a cross-section of Northern Ireland. Catholic and Protestant, urban and rural, experienced veterans and fresh-faced recruits.
"This atrocity was not just an attack on individuals, but on the very fabric of our society and our right to live free from fear and violence.
"As we mark this solemn anniversary, we once again challenge those responsible to recognise the lasting hurt they caused and to accept that there was never any justification for such cruelty. There was always an alternative."