The Avenue Bar shooting occurred on May 15, 1988, as the Ulster Volunteer Force launched a gun attack on the Avenue Bar on Union Street in the city center of

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Northern Ireland Northern Ireland ( ga, Tuaisceart Éireann ; sco, label= Ulster-Scots, Norlin Airlann) is a part of the United Kingdom, situated in the north-east of the island of Ireland, that is variously described as a country, province or region. Nort ...

, killing three Catholic civilians and wounding six others. The bar was close to the Unity Flats complex and as a result was frequented mostly by Catholics.

Background

In 1988 both the UVF and the UDA had stepped up their campaigns against the Nationalist community, in part due to receiving a large arms shipment of handguns and assault rifles from

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. On 15 January the UVF shot dead Catholic civilian Billy Kane at his home in the New Lodge. The objective of the Avenue Bar attack was to kill a leading Republican from the Unity Flats. The bar had already been targeted by the UVF in 1973 in a bomb attack in which a Catholic pensioner, Francis McNelis, was killed.

The shooting

The attack occurred at 2:20pm when the bar was crowded with patrons. Two gunmen walked into the pub after being admitted through an electronic security door. A witness said they at first seemed to be looking for someone, but then opened fire indiscriminately with automatic weapons. People threw glasses at the gunmen in an attempt to fight them off. The gunmen escaped in a car which had been

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20 minutes earlier on the Shankill Road, and which was found abandoned at Carlow Street behind Shankill Leisure Centre shortly after the attack. The three victims were Stephen McGahan (27), from the New Lodge, Damien Devlin (24), from Andersonstown, and Paul McBride (27), from Ardoyne. The UVF almost managed to kill another leading Provisional IRA member from the Unity Flats who was drinking in the bar at the time of the attack.

Aftermath

In January 1990, three self-confessed Ulster Volunteer Force volunteers were sentenced to life in prison for the parts they played in the Avenue Bar shooting along with the killing of another Catholic civilian on 15 January 1988 in Upper Meadow Street, Belfast. . A month after the killings at the bar, on the 15 June 1988, the

Provisional Irish Republican Army The Irish Republican Army (IRA; ), also known as the Provisional Irish Republican Army, and informally as the Provos, was an Irish republican paramilitary organisation that sought to end British rule in Northern Ireland, facilitate Irish reun ...

(PIRA) shot dead a UVF commander, Robert "Squeak" Seymour, who the PIRA alleged had ordered the Avenue Bar attack. He was killed by the PIRA in an alley behind his video shop in Woodstock Road, east Belfast.https://www.rte.ie/archives/collections/news/21278842-ira-shot-uvf-member-robert-seymour/ RTÉ Archives, IRA Shot UVF Member Robert Seymour BROADCAST: 1988.JUN.15, by Fergal Keane, rte.ie

References

Notes {{coord, 54.597, -5.930, type:event_globe:earth_region:GB-NIR, display=title Ulster Volunteer Force actions Terrorist incidents in the United Kingdom in 1988 1980s murders in Northern Ireland 1988 murders in Ireland 1988 murders in the United Kingdom 1988 in Northern Ireland Massacres in Northern Ireland Deaths by firearm in Northern Ireland 1980s mass shootings in the United Kingdom Mass shootings in Northern Ireland May 1988 events in the United Kingdom Attacks on bars in Northern Ireland 1988 mass shootings in Europe Mass shootings in Belfast Terrorist incidents in Ireland in the 1980s

Background

The shooting

Aftermath

See also

References