Remembering Loughinisland victims 25 years after atrocity

Remembering Loughinisland victims 25 years after atrocity

26 June 2019

AT 10 minutes past 10 last Tuesday evening, a group of around 50 men, women and children bowed their heads outside the Heights Bar in Loughinisland. 

They came to pay their collective and personal respects to the six local men who were shot dead in 1994 by a UVF gang as they watched the Republic of Ireland play in the World Cup.

A dignified and solemn vigil was held exactly at the time when the men — Barney Green (87), Daniel McCreanor (59), Malcolm Jenkinson (53), Eamon Byrne (39), Patrick O’Hare (35) and Adrian Rogan (34) — were murdered and five other men wounded 25 years ago.

Grandchildren and great-grandchildren — some of whom never knew the loved one who died — gathered as a community with all those bereaved and wounded to mark the anniversary with prayers and personal reflection.

The group included Emma Rogan, the daughter of Adrian Rogan and now a Sinn Fein MLA for South Down, and Aidan O’Toole, who was injured as he served customers that night.

The widow of another injured man, Brendan Valentine, who passed away in 2017, led the group in a decade of the Rosary as individual family members lit candles.

Ms Rogan said later: “After the Rosary, nothing was said as nothing needed to be said. It was all very respectful, very dignified.”

Also attending were journalists Barry McCaffrey and Trevor Birney, who worked with Oscar-winning producer Alex Gibney on the documentary and controversial film, No Stone Unturned, as well as the Loughinisland Justice Group’s solicitior, Niall Murphy.

No person has ever been charged with Loughinisland Massacre murders and the bereaved families are still calling for justice.