On 5 February 1992, there was a

mass shooting There is a lack of consensus on how to define a mass shooting. Most terms define a minimum of three or four victims of gun violence (not including the shooter or in an inner city) in a short period of time, although an Australian study from 20 ...

at the Sean Graham

bookmaker A bookmaker, bookie, or turf accountant is an organization or a person that accepts and pays off bets on sporting and other events at agreed-upon odds. History The first bookmaker, Ogden, stood at Newmarket in 1795. Range of events Bookm ...

's shop on the Lower

Ormeau Road Ormeau Road is a road in south Belfast, the capital of Northern Ireland. Ormeau Park is adjacent to it. It forms part of the A24. History The road, as currently laid out, dates from the first decades of the 19th century when a bridge was buil ...

Belfast Belfast ( , ; from ga, Béal Feirste , meaning 'mouth of the sand-bank ford') is the capital and largest city of Northern Ireland, standing on the banks of the River Lagan on the east coast. It is the 12th-largest city in the United Kingdom ...

, Northern Ireland. Members of the

Ulster Defence Association The Ulster Defence Association (UDA) is an Ulster loyalist paramilitary group in Northern Ireland. It was formed in September 1971 as an umbrella group for various loyalist groups and undertook an armed campaign of almost 24 years as one of t ...

(UDA), a loyalist paramilitary group, opened fire on the customers with an assault rifle and handgun, killing five civilians and wounding nine. The shop was in a

Catholic The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics worldwide . It is among the world's oldest and largest international institutions, and has played a ...

and

Irish nationalist Irish nationalism is a nationalist political movement which, in its broadest sense, asserts that the people of Ireland should govern Ireland as a sovereign state. Since the mid-19th century, Irish nationalism has largely taken the form of c ...

area, and all of the victims were local Catholics. The UDA claimed responsibility using the cover name "Ulster Freedom Fighters", saying the shooting was retaliation for the Teebane bombing, which had been carried out by the

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

less than three weeks before. A later investigation by the

Police Ombudsman The Office of the Police Ombudsman for Northern Ireland (OPONI; ga, Ombudsman Póilíní do Thuaisceart Éireann, Ulster-Scots: ''Owersman fur tha Polis o Norlin Airlann'') is a non-departmental public body intended to provide an independent, im ...

found that the Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) had engaged in " collusive behaviour" with UDA

informer An informant (also called an informer or, as a slang term, a “snitch”) is a person who provides privileged information about a person or organization to an agency. The term is usually used within the law-enforcement world, where informan ...

s involved in the attack.

Background

The start of 1992 had witnessed an intensification in the campaign of violence being carried out by the

(UDA) under their UFF covername. The group's first killing that year was on 9 January when Catholic civilian Phillip Campbell was shot dead at his place of work near Moira by a Lisburn-based UDA unit. The same group killed another Catholic civilian, Paul Moran, at the end of the month and a few days later taxi driver Paddy Clarke was killed at his north Belfast home by members of the

UDA West Belfast Brigade The UDA West Belfast Brigade is the section of the Ulster loyalist paramilitary group, the Ulster Defence Association (UDA), based in the western quarter of Belfast, in the Greater Shankill area. Initially a battalion, the West Belfast Brigade eme ...

.McDonald & Cusack, p. 222 However, the Inner Council of the UDA, which contained the six brigadiers that controlled the organisation, felt that these one-off killings were not sending a strong enough message to republicans and so it sanctioned a higher-profile attack in which a number of people would be killed at once. On this basis the go-ahead was given to attack Sean Graham bookmaker's shop on the

Lower Ormeau Road. This was a major arterial route in the city and was near the UDA stronghold of Annadale Flats. According to David Lister and Hugh Jordan, the bookmaker's shop was chosen by West Belfast Brigadier and Inner Council member

Johnny Adair John Adair (born 27 October 1963), better known as Johnny Adair or Mad Dog Adair, is an Ulster loyalist and the former leader of the "C Company", 2nd Battalion Shankill Road, West Belfast Brigade of the Ulster Freedom Fighters (UFF). This was a ...

because he had strong personal ties with the commanders of the Annadale UDA.Lister & Jordan, p. 134 A 1993 report commissioned by

RUC Special Branch RUC Special Branch was the Special Branch of the Royal Ulster Constabulary The Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) was the police force in Northern Ireland from 1922 to 2001. It was founded on 1 June 1922 as a successor to the Royal Irish Constab ...

also claimed that Adair was the driving force behind the attack.

Shooting

The attack occurred at 2:20 in the afternoon. Two men, wearing boiler suits and black balaclavas, got out of a car on University Avenue and crossed the Ormeau Road to the bookmakers. One was armed with a vz.58 Czechoslovak assault rifle and the other with a 9mm pistol. They entered the shop and fired indiscriminately on the fifteen customers, unleashing 44 rounds. One opened fire with the assault rifle before the other shot victims with the handgun as they lay on the ground. The gunmen then ran back to the car and sped off. Five Catholic men and boys were killed: Christy Doherty (52), Jack Duffin (66), James Kennedy (15), Peter Magee (18) and William McManus (54). Nine others were wounded, one critically. Four of them died at the scene, while 15-year-old Kennedy survived until he reached the hospital, his final words being reported as "tell my mummy that I love her". Kennedy's mother Kathleen died two years later after becoming a recluse. Her husband, James (Sr.), blamed his wife's death on the shooting, saying "the bullets that killed James didn't just travel in distance, they travelled in time. Some of those bullets never stopped travelling". One of the wounded described the shooting to British journalist Peter Taylor:

There was a right crowd in he betting shopand I cracked a joke with a couple of them – they were like that, always laughing and carrying on. I had only been in for about twenty or twenty-five minutes when the shooting started – I was standing next to the door with a docket in my hand studying the form. At first I thought it was a hold-up but then the shooting started and somebody yelled, 'Hit the deck'. I just lay there and prayed that the shooting would stop. It seemed to go on for a lifetime. There wasn't a sound for a few seconds – everybody was so stunned, but then the screaming started. People were yelling out in agony. You could hardly see anything. The room was full of gun smoke and the smell would have choked you.Taylor, Peter (1999). ''Loyalists''. London: Bloomsbury Publishing Plc. pp.218–219

In a separate incident, a unit of the

Ulster Volunteer Force The Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF) is an Ulster loyalist paramilitary group. Formed in 1965, it first emerged in 1966. Its first leader was Gusty Spence, a former British Army soldier from Northern Ireland. The group undertook an armed campaign ...

(UVF) had travelled to the area at the same time to kill a local

Sinn Féin Sinn Féin ( , ; en, " eOurselves") is an Irish republican and democratic socialist political party active throughout both the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland. The original Sinn Féin organisation was founded in 1905 by Arthur G ...

activist, based on intelligence that he returned home about that time every day. The attack was abandoned, however, when Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) vehicles and ambulances sped past the UVF unit's car. The UVF members, who had already retrieved their weapons for the attack, were said to be livid with the UDA for not co-ordinating with them beforehand and spoiling their chance to kill a leading local republican.

Aftermath and reactions

A UDA statement in the aftermath of the attack claimed that the killings were justified as the Lower Ormeau was "one of the

IRA Ira or IRA may refer to: *Ira (name), a Hebrew, Sanskrit, Russian or Finnish language personal name *Ira (surname), a rare Estonian and some other language family name *Iran, UNDP code IRA Law *Indian Reorganization Act of 1934, US, on status of ...

's most active areas". The statement also included the phrase "remember Teebane", suggesting that they intended the killings as retaliation for the Teebane bombing in

County Tyrone County Tyrone (; ) is one of the six counties of Northern Ireland, one of the nine counties of Ulster and one of the thirty-two traditional counties of Ireland. It is no longer used as an administrative division for local government but retai ...

less than three weeks earlier. In that attack, the IRA had killed eight Protestant men who were repairing a

British Army The British Army is the principal land warfare force of the United Kingdom, a part of the British Armed Forces along with the Royal Navy and the Royal Air Force. , the British Army comprises 79,380 regular full-time personnel, 4,090 Gurk ...

base. The same statement had also been yelled by the gunmen as they ran from the betting shop.McDonald & Cusack, p. 223 Alex Kerr, who was then UDA Brigadier for South Belfast, released a second statement about a month after the attack in which he sought to justify the killings. Kerr stated that "the IRA was extremely active in the lower Ormeau and the nationalist population there shielded them. They paid the price for Teebane". He added that if there were any further bombings like that at Teebane then the UDA would retaliate in the same way as at Sean Graham's. The idea that the killings were justified because of Teebane was shunned by Rev. Ivor Smith, a

Presbyterian Presbyterianism is a part of the Reformed tradition within Protestantism that broke from the Roman Catholic Church in Scotland by John Knox, who was a priest at St. Giles Cathedral (Church of Scotland). Presbyterian churches derive their nam ...

minister who was based in the area and who worked with the families of the bomb victims. He said that the UDA claim was "like a knife through the heart. We were absolutely appalled at the thought that somebody would try to do something like that and justify it by bringing in Teebane. As far as the families were concerned, it was very definitely not 'in my name'". A letter expressing deep sympathy from Betty Gilchrist, a Protestant whose husband had been killed at Teebane, was read out at the funeral of Jack Duffin.McDonald & Cusack, p. 224

Alasdair McDonnell Dr Alasdair McDonnell (born 1 September 1949) is an Irish politician who is a member of the Social Democratic and Labour Party (SDLP), and was its leader from 2011 to 2015. He was the Member of Parliament for Belfast South from 2005 to 2017 and ...

, a general practitioner and

Social Democratic and Labour Party The Social Democratic and Labour Party (SDLP) ( ga, Páirtí Sóisialta Daonlathach an Lucht Oibre) is a social-democratic and Irish nationalist political party in Northern Ireland. The SDLP currently has eight members in the Northern Ireland ...

councillor in the area, also suggested that the attack had been in response to Teebane. However, he was strongly rebuked by the Lower Ormeau Residents Action Group, a residents' association with Sinn Féin links, for seemingly justifying the killings with this claim. Seventeen people were arrested and questioned about the attack. Two were charged with the murders, but the charges were later withdrawn, and no one has been convicted for the killings. Locally, blame fell on Joe Bratty and his sidekick Raymond Elder, two leading figures in the South Belfast UDA. Elder was identified by witnesses as one of the gunmen and fibers from the getaway car were found on his denims. He was charged with involvement in the attack but the charges were withdrawn. It has been claimed that Bratty planned the attack, but did not take part in it. Lister and Jordan claim that one of the gunmen was from the West Belfast UDA and was supplied to Bratty by

. Following his release from custody, Adair organised a lavish celebration party for Bratty and Elder in

Scotland Scotland (, ) is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. Covering the northern third of the island of Great Britain, mainland Scotland has a Anglo-Scottish border, border with England to the southeast ...

where he allegedly gave Bratty a gold ring inscribed with the initials UFF. The IRA did not immediately retaliate, although in a statement they claimed to know the identity of the killers and claimed they would "take them out when the time was right". When Bratty and Elder were shot dead by the IRA in July 1994, revellers in the Lower Ormeau hailed the attack as revenge for Sean Graham's. When a July 1992 Orange Order march passed the scene of the shooting, Orangemen shouted pro-UDA slogans and held aloft five fingers as a taunt to residents over the five deaths."Chronology of the Conflict: July 1992

Conflict Archive on the Internet CAIN (Conflict Archive on the Internet) is a database containing information about Conflict and Politics in Northern Ireland from 1968 to the present. The project began in 1996, with the website launching in 1997. The project is based within Ul ...

(CAIN) The claim is corroborated by Henry McDonald and Jim Cusack. The images of Orangemen and loyalist flute band members holding up five fingers as they passed the shop were beamed around the world and was a public relations disaster for the Order.

Patrick Mayhew Patrick Barnabas Burke Mayhew, Baron Mayhew of Twysden, (11 September 1929 – 25 June 2016) was a British barrister and politician. Early life atrick’s father, George Mayhew, was a decorated army officer turned oil executive; his mother, S ...

, then Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, said that the actions of the marchers "would have disgraced a tribe of cannibals". The incident led to a more concerted effort by Lower Ormeau residents to have the marches banned from the area, which later succeeded.McDonald & Cusack, p. 225 In February 2012 Jackie McDonald, the incumbent commander of the UDA South Belfast Brigade (the area in which the shop is located), admitted that the victims of the shooting had been innocent. However, McDonald said that he could not apologise for the attack, arguing that as he was imprisoned at the time he played no part in what had happened.Bookies victims 'innocent' – UDA
/ref> In an earlier interview with Peter Taylor, McDonald suggested that it was the rise in sectarian killings and attacks such as that at Sean Graham's that "brought about the ceasefire at the end of the day".

Historical Enquiries Team and Ombudsman reports

The attack was one of a number to be investigated by the

Historical Enquiries Team The Historical Enquiries Team was a unit of the Police Service of Northern Ireland set up in September 2005 to investigate the 3,269 unsolved murders committed during the Troubles, specifically between 1968 and 1998. It was wound up in Septembe ...

(HET) in 2010. It found that the

Browning pistol Browning Arms Company (originally John Moses and Matthew Sandefur Browning Company) is an American marketer of firearms and fishing gear. The company was founded in Ogden, Utah, in 1878 by brothers John Moses Browning (1855–1926) and M ...

used in the attack came from the security forces. It was given to the UDA by a soldier who had taken it from an Army base. William Stobie, a UDA quartermaster and police

, handed the gun to his police handlers and they gave it back to him. Police "may have thought they had tampered with it to prevent it from being used". According to the HET report this operation "would have required both the authority of a senior police officer and a recovery plan ..within a short period of time. Clearly in this case, there was a significant failure and the repercussions were tragic and devastating". The report stated that the gun was used in other UDA killings. Police also told the HET that the assault rifle used in the attack had been "disposed of", but it was later found on display in the Imperial War Museum.

Alex Maskey Alex Maskey (born 8 January 1952) is an Irish politician who has been Speaker of the Northern Ireland Assembly since 2020 and was the first member of Sinn Féin to serve as Lord Mayor of Belfast from 2002 to 2003. He was Sinn Féin's longest s ...

, a Sinn Féin MLA for the area, commented that "the finding by the HET that the Browning pistol used by the UDA in this attack was handed back to them by the RUC will come as no surprise to the people of the Lower Ormeau area, who have long known that a high degree of collusion took place in this attack".Bookies' massacre gun 'given by RUC'
/ref> An investigation by the

concluded in 2022 that police engaged in "collusive behaviour" with the South Belfast UDA. Those suspected of involvement in the attack were police informers. It noted that a UDA informer handed the Browning pistol to police, who deactivated it before handing it back, along with other guns. The gun was then re-activated by the UDA. There were also "significant" failures in the police investigation: blood found on the coat of a suspect was not tested, a suspect's alibi was not checked, and there was "deliberate destruction" of files on the attack. However, the Ombudsman found no evidence the attack could have been prevented.

Commemoration

On 5 February 2002 a plaque was erected on the side of the bookmaker's shop in Hatfield Street carrying the names of the five victims and the

Irish language Irish ( Standard Irish: ), also known as Gaelic, is a Goidelic language of the Insular Celtic branch of the Celtic language family, which is a part of the Indo-European language family. Irish is indigenous to the island of Ireland and was ...

inscription ''Go ndéana Dia trócaire ar a n-anamacha'' ("May God have mercy on their souls"). A small memorial garden was later added. The unveiling ceremony, which took place on the tenth anniversary of the attack, was accompanied by a two-minute silence and was attended by relatives of the dead and survivors of the attack. A new memorial stone was laid on 5 February 2012 to coincide with the publication of a booklet calling for justice for the killings. On 5 February 2021, a group of people, who were paying tribute to the victims of the attack, were arrested by the members of the

Police service of Northern Ireland The Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI; ga, Seirbhís Póilíneachta Thuaisceart Éireann; Ulster-Scots: ') is the police force that serves Northern Ireland. It is the successor to the Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) after it was reform ...

(PSNI), for reportedly not adhering to

COVID-19 Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is a contagious disease caused by a virus, the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The first known case was identified in Wuhan, China, in December 2019. The disease quickly ...

regulations. One of the survivors of the shooting, Mark Sykes was taken into custody. He was released by evening. The incident was subsequently investigated by the

, and the Chief Constable, Simon Byrne, said the force was reviewing video footage from officers' body cameras. Byrne eventually offered his apologies "to all those who were present or had been affected by what they had seen on social media." One PSNI officer was suspended and another repositioned.

References