MPs hear story of Co Down boy who heard his father’s dying screams as he was shot by IRA outside bedroom window

The House of Commons has tonight heard the story of how a 12-year-old Co Down boy heard his father’s dying screams as he was murdered outside the child’s bedroom window, leaving him an orphan.
By Philip Bradfield
Published 10th Dec 2020, 17:15 GMT
Updated 11th Dec 2020, 15:10 GMT
Sammy Heenan at the remote farm in the hills around Leitrim where, as a 12-year-old boy, he heard his father's dying screams as he was executed outside his bedroom window.Sammy Heenan at the remote farm in the hills around Leitrim where, as a 12-year-old boy, he heard his father's dying screams as he was executed outside his bedroom window.
Sammy Heenan at the remote farm in the hills around Leitrim where, as a 12-year-old boy, he heard his father's dying screams as he was executed outside his bedroom window.

Early one morning in May 1985, young Sammy Heenan was in bed in his home near Castlewellan when he heard his father William’s “haunting and dying screams”.

 The story was relayed to MPs by Upper Bann DUP MP Carla Lockart, as she made an impassioned plea for action against what she said was “the promotion and glorification of terrorism” in Northern Ireland.

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In order to drive her point home, she told the horrific story to MPs in the words of Mr Heenan himself.

The Sinn Fein advice centre in CastlewellanThe Sinn Fein advice centre in Castlewellan
The Sinn Fein advice centre in Castlewellan

“On that fateful morning on the 3rd May 1985 at 7am, I went out to find my father brutally murdered after I heard his final haunting and dying screams,” she said.

“He had been forced to his knees and shot twice in the top of the head at point blank range by a South Down PIRA gunman. The image of his face bloodied and unrecognisable as he lay on the ground that morning will be etched on my mind forever. After which I had to run to a neighbours house half a mile away to raise the alarm, sobbing and in a state of utter despair.”

His mother had already passed away, so the murder left him an orphan.

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Sinn Fein MP Chris Hazzard. Picture by Jonathan Porter/PressEye.comSinn Fein MP Chris Hazzard. Picture by Jonathan Porter/PressEye.com
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The MP highlighted the fact that today, in 2020, just five miles from the murder scene, South Down MP Chris Hazzard operates a constituency office - The McNulty-Magorrian Advice Centre - which is formally named after two IRA men. Peter McNulty was killed by his own bomb as he tried to blow up Castlewellan RUC station in 1972 and Paul Magorrian was shot by the security forces whilst he was on active service’ in 1974.

Carla Lockhart MP.Carla Lockhart MP.
Carla Lockhart MP.

Ms Lockhart added: “In the act of naming an office after two terrorists, and operating as a member of this house from that Office, one would think that this Parliament – this bastion of democratic principles, the very place where parliamentary democracy was founded – would stop such an affront to democracy.

“Yet this is not the case. I have raised this with the Parliamentary Standards Commissioner who has responded saying she has no grounds to investigate. Likewise, IPSA say it is not for them but for this House. And by doing nothing, we facilitate, indeed financially support, an MP who day and daily glorifies terrorists. I urge the Minister to undertake to address this issue in the coming days

“In this instance, it is a case of doing what is right. Of recognising the hurt and pain this causes innocent victims and saying, ‘This House will not facilitate or allow this to happen any longer’.”

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Speaking of a need to build a better future in Northern Ireland, the DUP MP added: “I have a young son. I want him to grow up in a society that has values, that has respect for the rule of law, that is at peace with one another. Yet I look at a society today where the very encouragement and glorification of terrorism goes largely unchallenged. In such a society, real reconciliation cannot happen.

“For in such a  society those who suffered most, our victims, are not respected, they are insulted. Until this stops, until those who engage in this behaviour cease and recognise the hurt and the wrongs they do and have done, we will never have that real peace we crave.”

Earlier this month Sinn Fein issued a statement in response to Ms Lockhart’s campaign on the matter.

A Sinn Féin spokesperson said: “We will take no lectures from the party that once aligned itself to the Ulster Resistance, whose weapons have never been disposed of.”

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