The last time I met Patsy Kelly was some weeks after the killing of UDR man, Robert Noel Jameson, in Trillick, Co Tyrone on 17 January 1974. The night after that killing, a Catholic owned bar was shot up and three customers were injured. The owner left the bar and Patsy took it over to make more money to support his wife, Teresa,and young family.
When I met him he expressed his concerns about further revenge for the killing of the UDR man. He clearly did not approve of it and was worried that it could bring more serious trouble to the area. I am sure he feared for his own safety since he had a high profile as a Councillor on Omagh District Council and also now managed the Corner bar along with his brother-in-law.
Patsy Kelly was killed on 24th July 1974. The last people known to have seen Patsy were UDR soldiers (mostly local) who had a checkpoint just outside the village of Trillick as he made his way home after locking up the bar about 12 o’clock midnight. The UDA/UFF claimed that they killed him.
In 1973, Patsy Kelly was elected for the Trillick area to serve on Omagh District Council. He had been in the civil rights movement. He was an effective local councillor. He belonged to the Irish Independence Party led by Frank McManus, a former MP for Fermanagh South Tyrone. Frank McManus himself was targeted and shot and injured by a member of a loyalist group. Another founding member of that party, John Turnley, a Protestant and an elected councillor from Carnlough county Antrim, was shot dead by the UDA/UFF in Carnlough on June 4,1980. Three UDA men from Larne were convicted and sentenced to life in prison.
Patsy Kelly was a lovely gentle man, thirty three years of age, married to Teresa, they had four children and Teresa was expecting their fifth child. That child is now an adult, also called Patrick. He would like to know who killed his father. No one has ever been arrested, charged or convicted for his murder. He was last seen alive by a UDR unit on patrol on the Badoney road outside of Trillick as he made his way home to the townland of Golan. The night of his murder he locked up the Corner bar about 12.00 midnight and headed for home. He never got home. He was stopped by a UDR patrol. What happened then is unclear.His body was found by visiting fishermen some weeks later on 10 August in a lake called Lough Eyes, near Lisbellaw, in county Fermanagh. Two 56 lbs weights were tied to his body. Patsy’s Mazda car was found burned out in the Brookeborough estate. A BMW car belonging to local DUP councillor and UDR soldier, Oliver Gibson, was reported missing that same night from outside his house in Beragh about 8 miles from Trillick.
I attended the Funeral of Patsy Kelly, in Magheralough church. It was the biggest ever seen in that area.
In 2003, the police decided to reopen the case and appointed an English Detective Superintendent, Andrew Hunter, to carry out a new inquiry. This was in response to a request from family solicitor, Patrick Fahy. He had received confidential information about a claim made by a former UDR member in 1999, who confessed one night in a bar that he was present the night that Patsy Kelly was killed. This witness died in mysterious circumstances before the police got to interview him. Many of the UDR members on that patrol had their houses searched and some were interviewed. Fred Cobain complained bitterly about this. However, that inquiry seems to have hit a wall. Nothing came of it.
I met Teresa Kelly the other day on the street in Enniskillen along with her daughter. She is still grieving forty-two years later. She said to me when I asked about the case: ‘Maybe some day the truth will come out. Somebody’s conscience might bother them.’ She lives in hope of finding the truth about who was responsible for the murder of her husband on 24th July 1974.
What a tragic story which is symptomatic, I imagine, of the continuing pain of many families for whom grief is ever present, long into the Peace Process. Thank you, Joe.
This is why the Demoratic Unionist Party, Arlean foster, Mike Nesbitt and the Ulster Unionist party wish to rewrite history and are blocking funds for a full investigation into the unsolved murders in northern Ireland most of which were committed by the British forces or their agents in the UDR/UDA/UVF/UFF
THE UNIONISTS AND THE BRITISH MUST NEVER BE ALLOWED TO REWRITE HISTORY WHICH SANITISES THEM FROM RESPONSIBILITY FOR 80 YEARS OF BRUTALITY AGAINST THE NATIONALIST /CATHOLIC COMMUNITY OF NORTHERN IRELAND
That really is a tragic story and it mirrors many other stories that happened a generation ago.It’s still very much alive for those of us who lived through those horrific times and we still exchange stories about a time that younger readers might find hard to comprehend. Things like this were happening on an almost weekly ,if not daily, basis. As for the conscience of the various perpetrators…..many have no conscience in the same way that there are plenty of hit -and- run traffic incidents left unsolved.Many will never confess if they can get away with it .
The state and the paramllitaries, a plague on all their houses. There is nothing now hidden that will not be revealed.
“In 1973, Patsy Kelly was elected for the Trillick area to serve on Omagh District Council. He had been in the civil rights movement. He was an effective local councillor. He belonged to the Irish Independence Party led by Frank McManus, a former MP for Fermanagh South Tyrone. ”
Given that the Irish Independence Party wasn’t formed until 1977, this seems impossible.
Also McManus was the serving MP in 1973.
Dominic ,there is plenty that will not be revealed by the SDLP for example.As the troubles were kicking off ,an SDLP delegation went to Dublin seeking arms.It has never been satisfactorily resolved as to whether arms were obtained and if they were who used them.
Hard to visualize John Hume running around the bogside with a machine gun
It seems no matter what the topic,Michael C can quite easily expand it into a rant against the S D L P.One might have thought that given Gibsons linkage to the D U P,there would be more than enough to cast some aspersions on that Party.Maybe Michaels own party are more reluctant to attack their buddies in government these days!
You see Argenta ,the “high moral ground” is a precarious place to position yourself as Conall McDevitt found to his cost.
Technically the IIP did’nt come into existence until 77.However there existed an “independent Nationalist” strong entity in Fermanagh which morphed into the IIP.
The ‘Lethal Allies’ book lifts the lid on widespread collusion between British army and loyalists in Tyrone and Armagh in the 1970s.
The author, Londoner Anne Cadwallader, noted that the preferred targets were not known Republicans (as you might have expected), but, interestingly, the peaceful and law-abiding rising Nationalist middle class:
“It analyses the status of targeted victims, finding that in all but one case they were ‘upwardly-mobile’ Catholics who were – either through their own enterprise or hard work – lifting their economic and political aspirations”.
The book notes that many of those killed were members of the GAA. As with the Israelis versus the Palestinians, Unionist hegemony depended on keeping the Taigs un-skilled and atomised; and the GAA is still despised by some Unionists, not because it was the “IRA at play” (even the most addled creationist bigots found that one hard to sustain) but because – perpetually insecure – they feared the idea of Taigs behaving in a disciplined and organised manner and providing their own identity and entertainment without the imprimatur of the colonist.
See more at: http://ulsterherald.com/2013/10/23/new-book-proves-systemic-collusion-existed-in-tyrone/#sthash.3jGbAguj.dpuf
The pan-British collusion is and always was old news in our community (the average tattooed racist BNP-style loyalist to this day hasn’t the brains to scratch himself; they often pulled the trigger, but invariably it was the “security” forces who picked the targets, supplied the weapons and provided cover for a getaway); but I bet it’s still all news to the likes of Miriam “cotton wool” O’Callaghan.