Gathering in Dundalk to mark 30th anniversary of Gibraltar killings

A gathering of around 45 people met at the Market Square in Dundalk on Saturday, to welcome a group of walkers on a memorial run from Dublin airport to Belfast, to mark the 30th anniversary of the killings of three unarmed IRA members in Gibraltar.

Thirty years ago this month, Mairead Farrell, Seán Savage and Dan McCann were shot in Gibraltar by the British SAS. When their bodies were brought home via Dublin their remains were met along the route to their homes in Belfast by supporters from every town they passed through.

The walkers on Saturday retraced that route from Dublin and arrived in Dundalk just after 12:00.

A spokesperson for Dundalk Sinn Féin said “it was very emotional, everyone was there to remember what happened, some of us had known the three who had been killed.

“We were all there to honour them. The walkers stopped for a photo and were then on their way and without planning or thinking about it we just joined them and walked with them out of the town.”

In 1988 as the funeral made its way north towards Belfast the hearses were attacked and there was an attempted hijacking of the remains by the RUC.

After Mairead Farrell and Dan McCann were interred and just before they interred Sean Savage, the funerals were attacked by Loyalist killer Michael Stone, who murdered three people that day and injured sixty others.

The Gibraltar/Milltown Anniversary Committee are holding a series of events in Belfast to commemorate all those who were killed during that period.