Peadar Tóibín (Meath West, Aontú) | Oireachtas source

On 18 June 1994, Ireland played Italy in a World Cup match in Giants Stadium. The Irish team astonished the world by defeating the Italians on that day. Most of the country was immersed in celebrations of that shock result. Loughinisland is a small village in County Down. On 18 June 1994, like practically every small village in the country, people piled into pubs to watch that match. On that night, at 10.10 p.m., two UVF men in boiler suits wielding Kalashnikovs went into that pub and fired 25 shots. Six people were killed and five others were wounded. Mr. Barney Green, 87 years old; Mr. Daniel McCreanor, 59 years old; Mr. Malcolm Jenkinson, 52 years old; Mr. Eamon Byrne, 39 years old; Mr. Patrick O'Hare, 35 years old; and Mr. Adrian Rogan, 34 years old were all murdered simply because they frequented a pub that was normally frequented by Catholics and they were watching a match in which the Republic of Ireland was playing in an international tournament.

Some people may feel this is in the past but the pain, hurt and suffering for those families still goes on today. No one has been held to account for those murders. Victims and the truth seem to be the collateral damage of the British dirty war in Ireland. Mr. Niall Murphy, a solicitor for the victims, has said the victims have been let down to this very day because no one is being held to account for the massacre. He said Mr. Barney Green was the oldest victim of the conflict in the North, yet the PSNI and the NIO forced the dying Ms Bridget Green to fight to her last days through the courts for justice for her dead husband. In the year of 2016, in a police ombudsman report, Dr. Michael Maguire, stated he had no hesitation in saying collusion was a significant feature of the Loughinisland murders. That report found the RUC knew the names of the suspects of the killings within one day of the massacre but delayed arresting them. The police ombudsman report also stated that one of the suspects was being run by the RUC as an informant.

While some may feel this is in the past, this weekend, 1,500 people, dressed in black trousers, white shirts and white ties, marched in a UVF march in east Belfast. These murders are part of a long list of murders of innocent people in the North of Ireland. These murders were carried out either by the help of the British state or at least were covered up by the British state. The British legacy Act, which was passed, was designed to give amnesty to people who carried out murders to stop families getting to the truth of what happened to their loved ones. Thankfully, the Government has brought the British Government to the European Court of Human Rights on that horrendous Act. What progress has been made in the Irish Government's case against the British Government on this issue?

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