Ballymurphy massacre
| Ballymurphy massacre | |
|---|---|
| Part of the Troubles | |
  | |
| Location | 54°34′30″N 5°58′26″W / 54.575°N 5.974°W Belfast, Northern Ireland |
| Date | 9–11 August 1971 |
Attack type | Mass shooting |
| Deaths | 11 civilians |
| Perpetrator | The Parachute Regiment, British Army |
The Ballymurphy massacre was a series of incidents between 9 and 11 August 1971, in which the 1st Battalion, Parachute Regiment of the British Army killed eleven civilians in Ballymurphy, Belfast, Northern Ireland, as part of Operation Demetrius (internment without trial). The shootings were later referred to as Belfast's Bloody Sunday, a reference to the killing of civilians by the same battalion in Derry a few months later, in which the name was first applied.[1][2] The 1972 inquests returned an open verdict on all of the killings,[3] but a 2021 coroner's report found that all those killed had been innocent and that the killings were "without justification".[4]
Background
[edit]Belfast was particularly affected by political and sectarian violence during the early part of the Troubles. The British Army had been deployed in Northern Ireland in 1969, as events had become beyond the control of the Royal Ulster Constabulary.
On the morning of Monday 9 August 1971, the security forces launched Operation Demetrius, the main focus of which was to arrest and intern suspected members of the Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA). The Parachute Regiment was selected to carry out the operation. The operation was chaotic and informed by poor intelligence, resulting in many innocent people being interned. By focusing solely on republicans, it excluded violence carried out by loyalist paramilitaries. Some nationalist neighbourhoods attempted to disrupt the army with barricades, petrol bombs and gunfire.[5] In the Catholic district of Ballymurphy, 10 civilians were shot and killed between the evening of 9 August and the morning of 11 August, while another died of heart failure.[6]
Members of the Parachute Regiment stated that they were shot at by republicans as they entered the Ballymurphy area and returned fire.[7][8] The press officer for the British Army stationed in Belfast, Mike Jackson, later to become head of the British Army, includes a disputed account of the shootings in his autobiography, stating that those killed in the shootings were republican gunmen.[9] This claim was strongly denied by the families of those killed, including in interviews conducted during the documentary film The Ballymurphy Precedent.