Republican News · Thursday 7 February 2002

Ormeau Road dead remembered

A large crowd turned out on Tuesday 5 February for the commemoration ceremony to remember those killed by the UDA in the Sean Graham bookies massacre on the Ormeau Road in 1992.

To mark the 10th anniversary of the killings, in which five people died and seven were injured, a new memorial garden was erected on the corner of Hatfield Street below the plaque bearing the names of the dead.

Those who died on that day were Christie Doherty (52), Jack Duffin (67), Willie McManus (54), Peter Magee (18) and James Kennedy (15).

Speaking at the ceremony that, held around 2 o'clock to coincide with the time of the massacre, Patricia Breen from the Lower Ormeau community said the five were "cruelly shot dead for no reason other than they were Catholics, easy targets in a vulnerable community".

Fr Curran from St Malachy's chapel said a decade of the rosary while Canon Peter McCann, who served the Lower Ormeau Road area for years, blessed the new memorial.