Northern Ireland

Trimble and Mallon 'show of solidarity' after double murder in Poyntzpass helped push for peace

David Trimble and Seamus Mallon make their way through Poyntzpass with Tom Canavan in March 1998
David Trimble and Seamus Mallon make their way through Poyntzpass with Tom Canavan in March 1998 David Trimble and Seamus Mallon make their way through Poyntzpass with Tom Canavan in March 1998

AN unprecedented show of solidarity between David Trimble and Seamus Mallon following a double murder 24 years ago helped the push for peace, it has been claimed.

Friends Philip Allen (34), a Protestant, was shot dead alongside Damien Trainor (25), a Catholic, in the Railway Bar in Poyntzpass, Co Armagh, on March 3 1998.

The killings made headlines as it emerged the lifelong pals were from different religious backgrounds.

The SDLP’s Seamus Mallon and former UUP leader David Trimble visited the shocked village and met relatives of the murdered men in what was seen as a powerful cross community show of unity.

The Good Friday Agreement (GFA) was signed just weeks after the attack.

Three years earlier the nationalist view of Mr Trimble had hardened when he and former DUP leader Ian Paisley held hands triumphantly on the Garvaghy Road in Portadown during that year's Drumcree parade dispute.

Former Armagh Gaelic football player and co-manager Brian Canavan's mother Bernie, who died in April 2020, was behind the bar in her family’s pub the night the killings took place.

Mr Canavan said that before Mr Trimble and Mr Mallon visited the Co Armagh village there "was a bit of a liaison between" UUP councillor Robert Turner and his SDLP counterpart Tom Canavan - an uncle of the former Armagh manager.

"They walked side by side up the street and the other two councillors walked behind," Mr Canavan said.

"Our area, the Troubles had never really affected it to any great degree before that. There had never been any trouble, it had always been a mixed village and the two sections always got on well together.

"It was such an outrageous thing to have happened but it (the visit) showed the solidarity, first of all between the people of the village, because they were all happy enough with it, there was nobody saying 'they shouldn't do this', they all thought it was a good thing."

Mr Canavan believes the events in Poyntzpass helped push politicians towards the historic peace accord.

"I wouldn't say it pushed it over the line but it was one of the things that maybe helped push it over the line at the end of it all," he said.

"I would have felt myself and my mother would have felt that it certainly was a help towards peace."

Mr Canavan agreed that after the joint visit by Mr Trimble and Mr Mallon to Poyntzpass both men were viewed warmly.

"There was always an awkwardness with David Trimble from our point of view but he stood up that day and he was able to do that," he said.

He revealed that in the years after the atrocity both men made a presentation to his late mother at a vintners event in Belfast.

"The two of them came together and I remember somebody saying it was the first time they had ever seen David Trimble doing something like that, giving an award like that to a cross community type thing," he said.

"It wasn't like him to do that type of thing, he was very much his own man, he did his own thing."

As part of a 2021 "Reflection on Seamus Mallon" convened by the John and Pat Hume Foundation, Mr Trimble recalled the visit to Poyntzpass.

He revealed and how Mr Mallon suggested they walk through the village as they made their way between the victims' wakes.

"I said yes, "I didn't go into the car, let the car come behind us," he said.

"We took our time walking through and I know a lot of people...thought of it as being a very significant demonstration.

"We weren't fully into the agreement, the negotiations of the agreement at that time, and a lot of people said when they saw the two of us walking through like that they began to think that there was hope."