It has been a dreadful week. Serious trouble in North Belfast sparked by loyalists last Wednesday culminated in the shooting dead of a Catholic postal worker on Saturday by the UDA and with death threats hanging over Catholic teachers and postal workers.
As we go to print, the UDA appears to be drawing back in the face of public outrage at its actions, cynically 'demanding' that its own nom de plume, the Red Hand Defenders, which had issued the threats, disband. Postal workers, who had walked of the job in protest, returned to work at midnight but still shocked at the callous and cowardly killing of their colleague.
Daniel McColgan was shot dead by UDA gunmen as he arrived for work at the Barna Square post Office sorting office in the staunchly loyalist Rathcoole area on the outskirts of North Belfast last Saturday morning, 12 January.
The young man and his partner, Lyndsay Milliken, were the parents of an infant daughter Bethany. They lived in the beleaguered Longlands Court area, a small estate that has been under constant loyalist attack. Only last week, An Phoblacht reported on the vulnerability of nationalists in the area.
McColgan was shot several times by at least two gunmen as he pulled up to the gates of the depot. He stood no chance.
d as the young man was being buried on Tuesday, 15 January, the media reported that a former UDP councillor from the area, Tommy Kirkham, was being questioned by the RUC/PSNI about the shooting. Kirkham, who resigned from the UDP because of its support for the Good Friday Agreement, was later released.
Thousands of people attended the McColgan funeral to Carnmoney Cemetery, including many elected representatives from the North Belfast area. Gerry Kelly, the Sinn FŽin Assembly member for North Belfast, represented the party.
Sinn FŽin councillor Breige Meehan had warned postal authorities last April that the siting of a Post Office depot in the Rathcoole area would lead to the assassination of a Catholic. Meehan's warning, which went unheeded, ended up in the death of Catholic postal worker Daniel McColgan last Saturday, 12 January. The Post Office has now said it will close the Rathcoole depot.
Speaking to An Phoblacht, Meehan said the tragic death of Daniel McColgan could have been avoided. "I was only expressing the views and articulating the worries of nationalist customers who had to use the Rathcoole depot and the fears of Catholics who worked there."
Meehan also said that since the killing of Daniel McColgan, she has been told that another Catholic worker was targeted as he went to the Barna Square depot just before Christmas. In that instance, the man spotted the two gunmen and was able to evade them.
![[An Phoblacht]](http://republican-news.org/graphics/title_gifs/aprn.gif)
