Nationalists murdered
By Laura Friel
A Catholic student was shot dead in a sectarian attack in the
early hours of last Saturday morning, just hours after a loyalist
rally in Antrim town. The killing came within days of the
loyalist murder of a Catholic council worker in Portadown.
On the Garvaghy Road, mourners attending the funeral of Adrian
Lamph walked in silence beneath the skyline silhouette of
Drumcree church. For a community living in the shadow of loyalist
intimidation, be it in the form of Orange marchers or the gunmen
of the LVF, the image of Drumcree's grey spire against a
darkening horizon added to the sense of foreboding. Sashes or
masks, to the beleaguered nationalist communities of the North,
it appears as two sides of the same coin.
Adrian Lamph, a 29-year-old father of two was singled out by a
lone gunman as he worked in a council depot in the loyalist
heartland of Portadown. Garvaghy Road residents had suspected
loyalists would, sooner or later, strike at the heart of their
community, but anticipation did not ameliorate their shock and
grief. As several thousand mourners gathered, local anger at the
LVF killing was compounded by the British government's decision
to ditch a recommendation by the Parades Commission to reroute
July's Orange parade away from Garvaghy Road. ``There are some
people who feel threatened by the prospects of peace,'' Fr Sean
Larkin told mourners. Adrian's blood trailed along a hospital
corridor, said the priest, ``cries out in protest at the sectarian
hatred which drives some to murder.'' It was a cry unheeded.
Within hours of Adrian Lamph's burial another young Catholic was
murdered by loyalist gunmen. 22-year-old Ciaran Heffron was shot
dead in the Antrim village of Crumlin as he walked home in the
early hours of Saturday morning. His body was discovered by a
taxi driver in the grounds of an Ulsterbus depot a short distance
from the Heffron family's home. Ciaran had been shot several
times in the head. A paramedic, who lives locally and was called
to the scene, attempted to resuscitate the victim but there was
no response. The university student had left the village pub, The
Fiddler's Inn, with friends before taking a short cut home alone.
The young man's father Hugh Heffron, fearful when his son had
failed to return home was out searching for Ciaran when the body
was discovered.
Members of Crumlin's Concerned Community, a group opposing Orange
parades through the village recently received sympathy cards
threatening their lives. Crumlin is less than five miles from
Aghalee village where Bernadette Martin was murdered at her
Protestant boyfriend's home by the LVF. Last week several shots
were fired into homes of Catholic residents living in Antrim's
Ballycraigy estate. Just hours before the killing of Ciaran
Heffron at a loyalist rally in Antrim town, the DUP had played
out its role as political rabble rousers for the LVF. Sporting
t-shirts exulting the LVF and waving Union Jack flags, members of
the crowd had cheered DUP Councillor Sammy Wilson. Known LVF
gunmen, believed to have been involved in the Crumlin killing,
were identified at the rally. It was the same old story, the
sectarian rallying cry of `no surrender' as a prelude to more
loyalist bloodletting.
Meanwhile the history of the weapon used by loyalists in the
Poyntzpass murders has been released. The Browning 9mm automatic
pistol was discovered shortly after the killing of Philip Allen
and Damian Trainor. Forensic examination has shown the weapon had
previously been used in a Belfast killing, kneecappings in
Dromore, County Down and Portadown, County Armagh and in drive-by
shootings in Lurgan's Mourneview estate. More curiously, it had
also been used in a shooting incident involving the LVF's Mark
`Swinger' Fulton. At the time Fulton had claimed the UVF were
behind an attempt on his life when a gunman opened fire as Fulton
walked into a flat at Corcrain, Portadown. David Keys, a member
of the LVF charged with the Poyntzpass murders and later exposed
as an RUC agent, was tortured, beaten to death and left hanging
in the LVF wing of Long Kesh.
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