Survivor of Droppin Well Bombing condemns 30th anniversary commemoration for INLA leader Dominic McGlinchey

Crowds attended the commemoration at Dominic McGlinchey's Bellaghy grave in Co Londonderry on Sunday.

The event marked the 30th anniversary of his murder, having been shot dead in Drogheda on 10 February 1994. His wife Mary was shot dead while bathing her children at their home in Dundalk in 1987.

The Troubles reference work Lost Lives says that Mr McGlinchey was a former chief of staff of the INLA who was one of the NI's most feared paramilitaries in the 1980s, often named ‘Mad Dog’.

He told the Sunday Tribune in 1983 he had killed around 30 people. "I like to get in close to minimise the risk for myself," he said.

Former Mid Ulster MP Bernadette McAliskey – who spoke at his funeral – also spoke at Sunday’s event.

She said that both Dominic and Mary McGlinchey knew “what they believed in”.

She added: “They maybe didn’t always make the wisest of choices in their own best interests but neither of them, neither of them, took a single action in their life to better themselves, to take advantage of another human being, to make money out of somebody else’s sorrow,” she said, according to the Irish News.

“Neither of them ever broke the principles that they believed in.” She added that both “wanted an Ireland where people went before greed, that justice went before money, where there was fairness and no poverty”.

Lost Lives said that in 1982 McGlinchey was said to have ordered the attack on the Droppin Well Bar in Ballykelly, Co Londonderry, in which 11 soldiers and six civilians were killed.

Steve 'Taffy' Horvath from west Wales was a 21-year-old army paramedic at the time, based at the nearby Shackleton Barracks.

He was at the pub’s toilet when the bomb went off. His colleagues in the bar were either killed or seriously injured.

Being an army medic, he worked through the night to help the dying and injured.

“Ballykelly was a really quiet, friendly village and we were well accepted by the locals,” he said. “What happened that night just showed that the INLA saw civilians as illegitimate targets.

"My thoughts are, to be honest, that McGlinchey should not be commemorated. He was commander of the INLA at the time and was responsible for organising the bombing. Many victims suffered terrible injuries.”

He now suffers PTSD as a result. "My symptoms are severe flashbacks, nightmares, severe anxiety, paranoia, and hyper-vigilance, affecting me dozens of times a day,” he said.

Community relations activist and lawyer Trevor Ringland was also concerned about Sunday’s event.

“To build a genuinely shared future in Northern Ireland and on this island we have to challenge the hatreds of the past that caused the unnecessary conflict,” he said. “One aspect of that is that the media – when reporting about paramilitaries who brought so much tragedy to our people – should also mention their victims and the impact their actions had on them and their families. This is important so that our young people are taught that what happened should never happen again.”

The News Letter reached out to Bernadette McAliskey for comment.