Loyalist heartland ends 50-year grudge with Paras over Belfast shootings
Inquiries by the Sunday World revealed the change of heart on the Shankill is probably because Soldier F – who is due to stand trial for murder – has ties to the local area.
For five decades, residents in the hardline loyalist area of west Belfast bore a grudge against the crack British army regiment.Although best remembered for gunning down innocent Catholic civilians in Ballymurphy and Derry, the maroon-bereted super-squaddies were also detested in the close-knit Shankill where they also shot dead two middle-aged men.Robert Richie McKinney (49) and Robert Johnston (50) were gunned down during a night of violence in 1972, when the Paras were accused of turning on the Protestant community.Mr McKinney was hit by gunfire while driving along Machett Street in the heart of the Shankill. He was on his way to collect a relative who was due to finish work and the family didn’t want her walking home while there was rioting on the streets.The fatal shooting of Robert Johnston from Sydney Street West was even more bizarre. Described at an inquest as a “harmless drunk”, he was struck by rifle fire from a Para near the Berlin Bar.Johnston had just shouted, ‘The meek shall inherit the earth’ when he was shot dead. And an eyewitness said she saw a Para take aim and fire at the victim.British parachute regiment flag flies this week at the Bayardo monument on the Shankill Road.
A Para shot and killed two members of the UDA on Shankill Road in 1972.In a rare admission of guilt, a spokesman for the Ministry of Defence said Mr McKinney and Mr Johnston, who was shot minutes later, were nothing other than entirely innocent civilians caught up in a situation which wasn’t of their making.Following the double-shooting, the UDA – which was still regarded largely a community-based organisation – held a fact-finding event in a library, where locals gave witness accounts of what happened.A booklet condemning the Paras’ behaviour was published and sold on the streets.And more recently, when other hardline loyalist areas came out in support of ‘Soldier F’ – a Parachute Regiment soldier currently facing murder charged connected to the Bloody Sunday shootings – the Shankill community remained silent.For five full decades, the Paras were persona non grata on the Shankill Road as a result of the McKinney/Johnston killings.And while loyalists in other areas sang the regiment’s praises by flying ‘We Support Soldier F’ flags, the Shankill Road people preferred to remain silent in memory of the two innocent civilians.But in recent days a maroon flag bearing the silver-winged logo of the Parachute Regiment has appeared at the top of a flagpole in the middle of the Shankill Road. It flies alongside an Israeli flag and the Union flag of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.The three flags are sited on the spot where 50 years ago the IRA carried out a savage bomb and shooting attack on the Bayardo Bar, killing five people. Survivors who stumbled out through the rumble were machine-gunned as they left.Inquiries by the Sunday World this week revealed the change of heart on the Shankill, which manifested itself with the flying of the Parachute Regiment flag, is probably because Soldier F – who is due to stand trial for murder – has ties to the local area.Armed British Paratroopers. PA ImagesOne man who spoke to us said: “I believe the change came about because it is widely rumoured around here that Soldier F has links to the area.“At the end of the day, he wasn’t personally involved in shooting anyone on the Shankill. But if he’s ties to the Shankill and he is being charged with committing murder on Bloody Sunday, then we should be supporting him.”He added: “It’s as simple as that.”The Paras responsible for the Bloody Sunday slaughter received fulsome praise from John Ross, a Shankill-born former member of the regiment, who writes occasionally on military matters.“Right from the outset, my regiment has been branded, murderers, killers and all sorts,” he said.“But we served with pride, we served with dignity, we were disciplined and we did our duty.“Yes, we were a robust regiment and if you wanted a job well done, we would have done it.“But we were just like any other regiment which served in Northern Ireland during Operation Banner.”Eleven months after the Bloody Sunday massacre, the Belfast Telegraph reported that 30 members of the Paras had bought themselves out of the regiment.While Soldier F is facing a murder charge, during their time in Northern Ireland many other Paras were charged and convicted of crimes ranging from armed robbery to theft.
