Northern Ireland

Decommissioning special report: Official IRA thought to have killed 54 people

The Official IRA bombing of a barracks in Aldershot Barracks killed seven people
The Official IRA bombing of a barracks in Aldershot Barracks killed seven people The Official IRA bombing of a barracks in Aldershot Barracks killed seven people

THE Official IRA is thought to have killed 54 people during the Troubles.

Among the most high-profile attacks in Northern Ireland was the shooting of Unionist Senator Jack Barnhill at his home near Strabane, Co Tyrone in December 1971.

The 65-year-old was the first politician to be murdered in Northern Ireland since 1922.

He was shot dead and a bomb placed by his body which destroyed his rural farmhouse.

RUC man Thomas Morrow from Co Armagh was also shot in an Official IRA ambush in Newry in February 1972 and died three days later.

In the same month, the group bombed an army base in Aldershot in England, home of the 16th Parachute Brigade, saying it was in retaliation for Bloody Sunday.

Seven people died when a car bomb exploded outside the officers' mess. No soldiers were present and instead five female kitchen staff, a gardener and an army priest, Fr Gerry Weston, were killed. Nineteen others were wounded.

Two civilian employees at Ebrington army base in Co Derry were also killed in January 1974, more than a year after the group had declared a ceasefire.

John Dunn (46) and Cecilia Byrne (53) died instantly when a bomb that had been placed under his car exploded shortly after leaving the barracks.

The Official IRA was also embroiled in two bloody feuds in the 1970s where victims included Seamus Costello, one of the founding members of the INLA and its political wing the IRSP.

The 38-year-old was shot as he sat in parked car in Dublin in October 1977.