Ramble Inn attack
Ramble Inn attack | |
---|---|
Part of The Troubles | |
Location | Ramble Inn, 236 Lisnevenagh Road, Antrim, Northern Ireland |
Coordinates | 54°45′44.9″N 6°14′35.2″W / 54.762472°N 6.243111°W |
Date | July 2, 1976 |
Attack type | Mass shooting |
Deaths | 6 civilians (5 Protestant, 1 Catholic) |
Injured | 3 |
The Ramble Inn attack was a
Background
The mid-1970s was one of the deadliest periods of
On 25 June 1976, IRA gunmen opened fire inside a
Attack
The Ramble Inn lies just outside Antrim, on the main
On the night of Friday 2 July 1976, a three-man UVF unit consisting of a driver and two gunmen stole a car from a couple parked in nearby Tardree Forest. The couple were gagged and bound before the men made off in the car.[4] At about 11PM, just before closing time, two masked gunmen in boiler suits[5] entered the pub and opened fire with machine guns, hitting nine people. Three died at the scene and a further three died later.
The victims were Frank Scott (75), Ernest Moore (40), James McCallion (35), Joseph Ellis (27) and James Francey (50), all Protestants, and Oliver Woulahan (20), a Catholic. Four of them—Scott, Moore, McCallion and Woulahan—died on 2 July while Ellis died of his wounds on 7 July[6] and Francey surviving until 14 July.[7] Scott and Moore were both from Creavery Terrace in Antrim,[8] Francey from Lisnevenagh Road in the town,[7] McCallion and Ellis from Cullybackey[9] and Woulahan—who was celebrating his 20th birthday on the night of that attack—from the Old Cushendun Road in Newtown Crommelin.[9]
Aftermath
On 3 July at 12:30PM, an anonymous caller to
In 2012 the Historical Enquiries Team (HET), a body which had been set up in Northern Ireland to re-investigate unsolved murders of the Troubles, met with the family of James McCallion to deliver their findings. The probe concluded that the then Northern Ireland police force, the Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC), had conducted a thorough investigation and the detectives working on the case did their best to bring the killers to justice.[4]
In April 1999 the dissident Loyalist paramilitary group the Orange Volunteers exploded a pipe bomb outside the Ramble Inn pub, damaging several cars. Nobody was hurt in the attack.[10]
References
- ^ a b "A Chronology of the Conflict: 1976". Conflict Archive on the Internet (CAIN)
- ^ a b Extracts from The Longest War: Northern Ireland and the IRA by Kevin J. Kelley. Zed Books Ltd, 1988. Conflict Archive on the Internet (CAIN)
- ^ Taylor, Peter (1999). Loyalists. London: Bloomsbury Publishing Plc. p.142
- ^ a b c d e "Ramble Inn atrocity: Family of victim still seeking some kind of justice". Ballymena Times. 27 September 2012. Retrieved 15 October 2012.
- ^ David McKittirck, Seamus Kelters, Brian Feeney, Chris Thornton & David McVea, Lost Lives: The Stories of the Men, Women and Children Who Died as a Result of the Northern Ireland Troubles, Mainstream Publishing, 2008, p. 659
- ^ McKittrick et al, Lost Lives, p. 661
- ^ a b McKittrick et al, Lost Lives, p. 662
- ^ McKittrick et al, Lost Lives, pp. 659-660
- ^ a b McKittrick et al, Lost Lives, p. 660
- ^ Breen, Suzanne. "Orange Volunteers admit pub bomb". The Irish Times. Retrieved 22 January 2019.