Families to mark 30th anniversary of Greysteel massacre

A Mass of Remembrance in memory of the eight people murdered by Ulster Defence Association/Ulster Freedom Fighters (UDA/UFF) gunmen on Saturday, October 30, 1993, will be followed by prayers at a memorial plaque for the victims outside the Rising Sun Bar where the atrocity took place.

Karen Thompson (19), Stephen Mullan (20), John Moyne (50), John Burns (54), Moira Duddy (59), Joseph McDermott (60) and James Moore (81) were killed when a loyalist gang burst into the pub and opened fire with assault rifles and pistols on the night before Hallowe’en.

Seventy-six year-old Samuel Montgomery passed away six months later from injuries sustained in the attack. Nineteen other people were injured.

In 1995 Stephen Irwin, Geoffrey Deeney, Torrens Knight and Brian McNeill received life sentences for their roles in the attack.

Court documents published in 2008 as part of a ruling on how long Irwin would serve in jail for the attack show the UDA/UFF leadership in the north west had briefed Deeney and McNeill about the attack at a meeting in Bond’s Place in Derry’s Waterside on October 27, 1993.

“At the meeting they were told of the plan to carry out the attack on the Rising Sun bar,” the documents state.

Outlining the factual details of the attack, the documents state: “Just before 10pm on Saturday, October 30, 1993, two gunmen in blue boiler suits and wearing balaclavas entered the Rising Sun Bar in Greysteel and opened fire on the patrons in the lounge.

"The main gunman, Stephen Geoffrey Irwin, was armed with an AK-47 and the second gunman, Geoffrey Deeney, was armed with a 9 millimetre automatic pistol.

"The lounge bar comprised two areas separated by a wall. The smaller of these had soft seating and tables adjacent to a bar. A sliding partition allowed access from there to a much larger area where there was a dance floor with tables and chairs around it.

"Geoffrey Deeney was the first gunman to enter the lounge bar. He stood to the right of the entrance door and his role was to ‘cover’ the main gunman, Irwin, to ensure that no-one interfered with him. Irwin followed Deeney into the building but proceeded further into the bar, more or less on to the dance floor.

"He said, ‘Trick or treat?’ and then opened fire on the patrons in the bar. There was a long period of gunfire followed by a short cessation of shooting while the prisoner [Irwin] changed the magazine on his rifle.”

Forensic evidence demonstrated that Irwin had fired in both the lounge bar and the dance hall.

"A number of witnesses verified this in their statements, saying that during the second burst of gunfire the main gunman appeared at the entrance to the dance area from where he fired a number of shots around the room,” the documents state.

Eddie Fullerton was not warned of Derry loyalist intelligence cache

Last year Police Ombudsman Marie Anderson’s Operation Achilles report concluded the Greysteel victims were among over 80 people murdered by loyalist weapons imported in a major arms shipment in December 1987.

These included VZ58 Czech-assault rifles – referred to as AK-47s in the court documents above due to their similarity in appearance.

She stated: "The VZ58 assault rifles in particular were used in multiple killings, including five murders by the UDA/UFF at Sean Graham Bookmakers on February 5, 1992, eight murders by the UDA/UFF at the Rising Sun Public House, Greysteel on October 30, 1993, and six murders by the UVF at the Heights Bar, Loughinisland on June 18, 1994.”

In her report Ms. Anderson expressed concern at police failures to act on intelligence about the 1987 arms shipment at the time.

"The UDA/UFF’s acquisition of weaponry from an arms importation in late 1987 equipped them, and other loyalist paramilitaries, with military grade firearms, including VZ58 assault rifles and semiautomatic pistols which they used in a number of sectarian attacks during the early 1990s.

"Despite police receiving accurate intelligence from within the ‘higher echelons’ of the UDA/UFF, mounting a significant covert surveillance operation against those involved in importing and distributing the weapons, recovering up to 60 per cent of the weapons and making a number of arrests, at least 63 VZ58 assault rifles and 34 Browning pistols were secured by loyalist paramilitaries.

"These weapons were subsequently used to murder in excess of 80 people,” reported Ms. Anderson.

Court records show how the UDA planned the Greysteel massacre

In 1995, on sentencing the Greysteel killers, Lord Justice Carswell remarked: “You have pleaded guilty to a series of offences which appalled and disgusted all the right-thinking people in this community.

"In your various ways you were concerned in or connected with one of the most callous and cold-blooded massacres in the catalogue of so many heinous crimes committed in this Province.

"Comparing atrocities would be as fruitless as it would be painful. It is sufficient to say that on the scale of barbarities which have been perpetrated by cold-hearted practitioners of violence over the last quarter of a century the Greysteel murders rank very high.

"There is nothing that can be said by way of mitigation in the case of those directly concerned, save that they have now faced up to their responsibility for what they did, pleaded guilty to their crimes and publicly expressed their regret.”

Monday evening’s Mass of Remembrance will take place at 7.30pm in Star of the Sea, Faughanvale.

Fr. John Downey remembered as ‘normal, long-distance running electrician’ who following late vocation ministered to dying at Greysteel