The murder of Willie Price

Extracts from a new booklet on the SAS murder of Willie Price on 13 July 1984, compiled for his family by Relatives for Justice.

The most comprehensive and forensic overview of SAS operations in Ireland is that provided by Monsignor Raymond Murray. He provides much evidence as to the activities, direct and indirect, of the SAS between 1969 and 1976, a period when they were not supposed to be in Ireland according to successive British governments. These activities include murder, (including sectarian murder involving other state undercover bodies such as the Military Reaction Force) torture, and extra judicial abductions. Units such as the MRF were supposedly inspired by Kitson about whom Murray is dismissive, describing him as “...not to be credited as an innovator. British colonial policy and principles of counterinsurgency go back a long time before him. He is important in that he took part in the operation of such a policy. He researched its workings, updated it and commented intelligently on it. His theories did not work out in Northern Ireland.”

He also outlines the organisational “fit” of the SAS within the British Army and how access to and from it was fast tracked when it came to the British political establishment, most of which was denied. For British governments of either hue, deniability and impunity went hand in hand with respect to the actions of the state, a state of affairs which continues to 2024, the date of the publication of this report.

In ‘Shoot to Kill’, the sixth chapter of Murray’s book, he identifies people killed by the SAS in the period 1981-87. Willie Price was one of these victims and Fr Murray was to undertake a detailed examination of the events surrounding his killing.

Murray’s account places Willie’s assassination in the immediate context of a commemoration of Martin Hurson’s death on hunger strike which occurred on 13 July 1981. The same night two years later, there was a series of coordinated attacks on properties in Tyrone. Thus, the Cookstown Furniture Centre, over 10,000 square feet in size, was destroyed after being firebombed and two other incidents around Coalisland occurred involving incendiary devices. The Forbes Kitchen Factory at Ardboe was another of the targets.

Republican sources described to Murray what happened next. Volunteers took up position in nearby fields before moving towards the factory. As two of the volunteers were securing the detonators, Willie and another volunteer moved closer to the factory to recce it before rejoining the other two. The unit then moved towards the factory, splitting into two as Willie and another volunteer headed for a clump of bushes thinking these would provide them with cover. Three to four figures rose from the bushes. By this account, “.... the whole place lit up with gunfire. William Price fell moaning. The other volunteer (accompanying Willie) crawled back through the long grass to the position he had left and made his escape”. The rate of fire, according to this account was intense. Volunteers describe the shooting not stopping from the time Willie Price was shot to the time the volunteer accompanying him got out of the firing line. There was then a gap of at least three minutes before another shot followed by a burst of shots was heard.

The other two volunteers, Raymond Francis O’Neil and Thomas McQuillan, were apprehended by another group of SAS on the Mullanahoe Road adjacent to the factory. These volunteers were convinced they would have been killed as they were lying on the ground covered by the British soldiers had not Mrs. Mary Forbes, the factory owner, opened a window and shouted at them thinking her son was present. O’Neill and McQuillan were charged with being in possession of two handguns, ammunition and incendiary equipment and subsequently jailed for nine years. Another uninvolved civilian at the scene, Francis Coleman, was arrested and detained “for a few days” before being released uncharged. Murray then completes his account of Willie Price’s killing with a critique of the soldiers’ inquest depositions. These are examined in detail later in this report. Eight soldiers were involved in the ambush, identified, as was usual, by alphabetical cyphers, A to H. The salient points drawn out by Fr Murray are:

• On the basis of the briefing given by the senior officer, Soldier “B”, this was supposed to be an observation and arrest operation. It was clear, therefore, that the briefing was relying on received intelligence, i.e. that the SAS soldiers had advance knowledge of the IRA’s intentions.

• Soldier “A” killed Willie Price. He had a night sight on his rifle and carried an AR-15 rifle with three magazines, and a Browning pistol ninety rounds in total. It would be reasonable to assume the other seven soldiers were similarly armed. Apart from acknowledged weaponry, the SAS have a history of having unauthorised weapons taken from other conflict zones and ostensibly kept as “trophies”. All in all, it’s quite an arsenal for an “observation and arrest operation”.

• Soldier “A”’s statement is explicit that, when his unit first saw the targets, he did not see any of the four men carrying arms. Nevertheless, he decides to act because one of them, “moved his hands into a position that suggested to me he was holding a gun”. (This became a much-used trope of countless SAS and other British army killings, being used as far away as Gibraltar, in March 1988, when IRA personnel Mairead Farrell, Sean Savage and Dan McCann were executed in broad daylight by the SAS.) These first shots wounded Willie, who dropped to the ground, badly injured.

• One volunteer was able to crawl away and managed to escape. The other two, O’Neill and McQuillan were apprehended by the SAS on the Mullanahoe Road and put down on the ground. They believe they were about to be executed when Mrs. Forbes, the owner of the Factory, opened a window in the adjacent building, and shouted out thinking one of the men may have been her son.

• According to O’Neill’s and McQuillan’s account, the initial shooting gave rise to exultant shouts and whoops. But after an interval of over three minutes, there was a further single shot and then another burst of shots. This was clearly when Willie died. We only have the soldiers’ versions.

• Soldier “A” claims that, after searching for weapons (which they didn’t find) they saw a body lying on the ground. Once again, “There was a sudden movement of his hands and again I believed he was holding a handgun. I thought he was going to fire at me, so I fired one round instinctively.” The autopsy confirmed that this was the shot that killed Willie. Needless to say, no weapon was found. The single high-velocity shot was to Willie’s head, the classic assassin’s execution.

• The pathologist, Dr Carson, makes it clear Willie was standing when he was shot in the leg, and he could have been sitting when shot in the head. Fr Murray questions the veracity of the was a similar culture of weapon smuggling and usage throughout the conflict in Ireland, particularly with British state forces engaged in counter-insurgency activities. account of Soldier “A” who claims Willie was lying on his back on the ground and that somehow, he twisted around and made to fire at Soldier “A” behind him. Willie Price was shot in front of the head making this proposition highly unlikely. Fr Murray makes the point, “Price was shot at close range in the top of the head; part of his head was blown off. His sister, who later identified his body, described the head as blown apart like the shell of an egg.”

• Finally, while the British soldiers claim they were dressed in regular army camouflage apparel, local witnesses saw the soldiers who arrested O’Neill and McQuillan “dressed in black clothes” and “carrying what looked like pump-action shotguns.” These details confirm the self-styled mystique of the SAS.

The Funeral - Upping the Ante

Willie Price was buried on 15 July 1984, the funeral taking place at St Brigid’s Church, Brockagh.

This was the first of many republican funerals where, with the benefit of hindsight, there was a clear change in British policy with respect to the policing of republican funerals. This was part of a strategy that sought to deny Irish republicans the “oxygen of publicity”. A decision had been made that republicans would no longer be permitted to honour volunteers killed on active service with the normal protocols. These included the presence of colour parties, volleys of shots fired over coffins as well as the placing of Irish tricolors, berets and gloves on coffins. This British State policy peaked in 1987 at the funeral of Larry Marley in Ardoyne by which time Irish republican funerals had been disrupted by RUC and British Army forces. The major effect of these interventions was contrary to the desired outcome by the British state such was the brutality of the physical presence. The militarised policing of funerals had the effect of “swelling the IRA’s ranks with new supporters” according to one source.

A contemporaneous account of the funeral exists from a BBC “Scene Around Six” broadcast which took place on 16 July 1984. Sean Rafferty, a BBC news presenter introduced the piece by saying, “The IRA man William Price, shot dead by troops in Ardboe on Friday, was buried at the weekend. There were scuffles between the police and mourners as the coffin was carried to the cemetery in Coalisland.”

BBC reporter, Austin Hunter, then reported from the scene of the funeral with accompanying images. “Ten police land rovers travelled in front of the funeral cortege. It was clear the police were determined to prevent a paramilitary style funeral for the IRA man. The mourners linked arms as they walked alongside the coffin. About 200 policemen, many of them in riot gear, walked beside them. There were scuffles throughout the two-mile route of the funeral. Sinn Féin say that about twelve of the mourners were injured during the fighting. Several people suffered head injuries. Because of the trouble, the cortege was forty minutes late arriving at St Brigid’s Church at Brockagh. The police say they withdrew from the cemetery after assurances there would be no paramilitary trappings. They say if individual officers did use their batons, it was to protect themselves. Six policemen were injured, one with a broken nose, another with fractured ribs. So, with police watching only yards away, the burial took place without further incident. Sinn Féin have described the police behaviour as ‘brutal’.”

Danny Morrison, publicity director for Sinn Féin at the time was then interviewed, “All we came to do was bury our dead. If the RUC weren’t around there’d be no trouble. And every road was blocked off, people had to abandon their cars several miles from the area on the pretext that the roads were already jammed with cars, and yet, we walked two and three miles of road and there was no cars there.”

In a subsequent interview given to a local newspaper by a Sinn Féin spokesperson it was stated, “police officers baton-charged mourners several times, injuring dozens of people” and, “RUC personnel had surrounded the church and assaulted mourners in the graveyard”. This was repudiated, in the same article, by the RUC who claimed, “officers at the funeral had been jostled and pushed by mourners and that one officer had his nose fractured while another received broken ribs. The spokeswoman denied that police had baton charged the 400 mourners but added that a number of individual constables had drawn their truncheons to protect themselves”. The article noted, “No shots were fired during the interment and there was no colour party at the graveside”.

Some months later, however, it was reported that on Sunday 14 April 1985 a tribute had been made at Willie Price’s graveside. Noting the significant RUC presence at the funeral and the repeated assaults on mourners it had been decided to hold the tribute later. Thus, “On Sunday morning, three IRA Volunteers armed with handguns took up position at Volunteer Price’s grave. Following a short silent tribute, they fired three volleys of shots over his grave”.

In a further footnote, the Reverend William McCrea, a DUP MP for Mid-Ulster at the time, “praised the security forces for what he described as the efficient manner in which they carried out their action in Ardboe”. With respect to the way the RUC conducted themselves at the funeral he stated, “It is about time these republicans were taught a solemn lesson. The security forces desire our wholehearted support in the preservation of peace. These obnoxious republican displays must be stopped as they are an insult to common decency”.

Conclusion

The killing of Willie Price, and the manner in which he was killed, has historical antecedents not only in the conflict in Ireland in the late 20th century but earlier, particularly during the War of Independence, sometimes known as the Tan War. One cannot help but be reminded of the comment made by Lt Colonel Gerald Smyth, appointed by Churchill to head up the Royal Irish Constabulary (RIC), “Should the order ‘hands up’ not be obeyed, shoot and shoot with effect.... The more you shoot the better I will like you, and rest assure no policeman will get into trouble for shooting any man....”

It is clear the British state fine-tuned this approach almost sixty years later and applied it to Willie Price resulting in his death. True, the state refined its delivery and became more sophisticated with respect to covering up what really happened that night in July 1984. However, it has not been successful in suppressing the truth, due to the tenacity of the family who are still seeking answers to fundamental questions. Questions that are posed in this report. Willie Price was killed in the context of a conflict not of his own making. In any other circumstances Willie would have led a normal full life - he was already making a valuable contribution to his immediate family and local community before his life was cruelly, and illegally, in the view of the family and supported by RFJ, cut short. His experience of being harassed by members of the British state led him into active Irish republicanism and he paid for this with his life. The false narrative created by his killers, reinforced by the violence around his funeral, and the conduct of the inquests needs to be addressed and corrected. The family feel his killing keenly so many years after his death, and their fight for the truth has been passed on to the next generation. This report provides an analysis of the context in which Willie Price died. It raises obvious questions to which there should be equally obvious answers.

* The full report is available to read at https://www.relativesforjustice.com/willie-price-family-report/

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