Teebane relatives need some closure

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The 30th anniversary memorial service on Sunday for the Teebane bombing. Credit: Jonathan Porter / Press Eye

January 17 2022 11:00 AM

According to some of the relatives of those killed 30 years ago today at Teebane the massacre has become one of the ‘lost’ atrocities in the history of the Troubles. For those directly affected there is no escape, and life has never been, and never can be, the same again.

It may have nothing to do with any ‘hierarchy of victims’ as some suggest, but instead could be partly due to the political row which occurred when Secretary of State Peter Brooke sang ‘Oh My Darling, Clementine’ on RTE’s Late Late Show that evening.

It was an excruciating error of judgment for which Mr Brooke paid with his cabinet career a couple of months later.

Sinn Fein leader Gerry Adams also attracted scorn for his comments that the atrocity was “a horrific reminder of the failure of British policy in Ireland”.

Whatever the reason for distraction, it’s clear from reading Mark Bain’s piece on the anniversary today that the families of those killed and injured feel forgotten about and cast aside.

Yesterday, they gathered together once again to mark the anniversary and remember William Gary Bleeks, Cecil James Caldwell, Robert Dunseath, David Harkness, John Richard McConnell, Nigel McKee, Robert Irons and Oswald Gilchrist who were murdered by the IRA bomb.

The ceremony may have brought a measure of comfort to the families, and perhaps sent a signal that Teebane has not been forgotten about.

However the reality is that 30 years later, despite the Historical Enquiries Team investigating several years ago, no one has ever been charged let alone convicted of the Teebane attack. And if the present incumbent of the Northern Ireland Office, Secretary of State Brandon Lewis, gets his way on legacy issues, it’s unlikely anyone ever will.

Mr Lewis has proposed a package of measures to deal with the past, including a statute of limitations on prosecutions and an end to ‘historical’ inquests and the sort of civil actions open to the relatives of those killed or injured during the Troubles. Legislation had been expected before Christmas but this date passed and the contentious bill with its de facto amnesty may not become law before the summer.

Opposition to the proposals has met with almost unprecedented cross-community unity. Everyone knows legacy needs to be properly dealt with, and everybody agrees that this plan is not the way to tackle it. There is still time for Mr Lewis to reconsider his wrong-headed proposals; the Teebane relatives and many who have suffered like them hope he will.

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