PAT McGinley realised her husband, Michael was one of the five victims of the 1972 Annie’s Bar massacre when she saw the new shoes she'd bought him sticking out from a blanket covering his body.
He was one of five men murdered by the UDA at Annie’s Bar in what has become known as the “forgotten massacre”. On December 20 1972, they were watching a football match in the bar at Strabane Old Road in Derry when two UDA gunmen came in and opened fire.
Mr McGinley (37) died along with Bernard Kelly (26), Charles McCafferty (30), Francis McCarron (58) and Charles Moore (31), the only Protestant killed in the attack. It was believed their murders were in revenge for the Provisional IRA murder of Ulster Defence Regiment soldier, George Hamilton earlier that day.
Before going to the bar that night, Mr McGinley played with his seven-month-old daughter, Gillian, his only child. Fifty years on and, now with three children of her own, Gillian McElholm and her family will lay flowers at the memorial to the Annie’s Bar victims and will later visit her parents' grave at Altnagelvin cemetery.
The Derry woman has no memory of her father’s murder but recalls the tragedy through her mother Pat who died in 1999.
“She never spoke much about it and never let herself get bitter but over the years she mentioned bits and pieces about what happened that night.
“At the time, she ran around to the bar when she heard there’d been a shooting and they were telling her that my father was OK but she saw the bodies covered with blankets and then she saw the shoes she’d brought my father sticking out from one of the blankets. She said that’s how she knew he was dead,” Ms McElholm said.
Her cousin Christine who was 10 at the time and lived nearby later told her she was “chased” upstairs when news of the shootings came in.
“Christine told me she could remember her father (Noel) and Auntie Pat crying and Uncle Alfie covered in blood.”
After the massacre, Mrs McGinley took her daughter back across Derry to the Old Moss (now Galliagh) where she herself had lived before getting married. The mother and daughter lived there for the rest of her mother’s life and Ms McElholm continues to live in Galliagh.
“She had to cope with everything on her own. She never re-married; she used to say she loved one man and nobody else and that was enough for her.
“She was not bitter but she had a lot of heartache; it was to be their first Christmas with me as a family. My uncle said his last memory of my father was meeting him earlier that day walking up the Strand Road with a huge teddy bear wrapped in plastic; that was to be my Christmas present,” Ms McElholm said.
As they prepare for the fiftieth anniversary, Ms McElholm said the tragedy has now lived into a third generation. Her own 16-year-old daughter, Lucia recently read the Historical Enquiries Team report on the massacre and has started talking to her mum about the grandfather she never knew.
For Ms McElholm, the fact that no-one was ever prosecuted for her father’s murder makes her angry. The UDA went on to murder hundreds of other victims and weren’t outlawed for another 20 years.
“There’s been no closure or justice and that still makes me angry; I’m angry that my three children never met their grandfather and he did not get the chance to be a father and a grandfather. If this legacy bill goes through, we’ll have no hope of ever getting justice. I’d love to see someone brought before the courts for it but 50 years on, there’s a very slim chance of getting justice now.”
Ms McElholm and other families met PSNI district commander for Derry Nigel Goddard. That meeting has helped Ms McElholm.
"Well, it’s always been called the forgotten massacre but at least meeting the police shows it’s not forgotten,” she said.
Relatives meet the PSNI
RELATIVES of four victims of Annie’s Bar massacre have met the PSNI to discuss the murders.
In a statement issued through the Pat Finucane Centre, which requested the meeting, the families said police apologised for the “lack of engagement” by the RUC following the massacre. Police said they would try to answer the families’ questions but acknowledged there could be difficult through the passage of time, loss and destruction of evidence and legal parameters.
Waterside parish priest Fr Michael Canny will celebrate a Remembrance Mass for the victims at St Columb’s church on Tuesday evening (6pm). He will be joined by retired Presbyterian Minister, Rev David Latimer.
Following Mass, there will be a candle-lit vigil from St Columb’s to the Annie’s Bar memorial at 6.30pm after which there will be a reception at An Chroi community centre.
