On 5 January 1976, near the village of Whitecross in south County Armagh, Northern Ireland, gunmen stopped a minibus carrying eleven Protestant workmen, lined them up alongside it and shot them. Only one victim survived, despite having been shot 18 times. A Catholic man on the minibus was allowed to go free. A group calling itself the South Armagh Republican Action Force claimed responsibility. It said the shooting was retaliation for a string of attacks on Catholic civilians in the area by Loyalists, particularly the killing of six Catholics the night before. The Kingsmill massacre was the climax of a string of tit-for-tat killings in the area during the mid-1970s, and was one of the deadliest mass shootings of the Troubles.
A 2011 report by the Historical Enquiries Team (HET) found that members of the Provisional IRA carried out the attack, despite the organisation being on ceasefire. The HET report said that the men were targeted because they were Protestants and that, although it was a response to the night before, it had been planned. The weapons used were linked to 110 other attacks.
Following the massacre, the British government declared County Armagh to be a "Special Emergency Area" and hundreds of extra troops and police were deployed in the area. It also announced that the Special Air Service (SAS) was being moved into South Armagh. This was the first time that SAS presence in Northern Ireland was officially acknowledged.
Background
On 10 February 1975, the Provisional IRA and the British government entered a truce and restarted negotiations. The IRA agreed to halt attacks on the security forces, and the security forces mostly ended their raids and searches. However, there were dissenters on both sides. Some Provisionals wanted no part of the truce, while British commanders resented being told to stop their operations against the IRA just when they claimed to have had the Provisionals on the run. The security forces boosted their intelligence offensive during the truce and thoroughly infiltrated the IRA.
Sectarian killings rose during the truce, which officially lasted until February 1976. Loyalists feared they were about to be forsaken by the government and forced into a united Ireland. Protestant paramilitaries, hoping to provoke the IRA into retaliation and end the truce, stepped up their attacks on Catholic civilians, murdering 120 in 1975. Some IRA units concentrated on tackling loyalists. The fall-off in regular operations caused unruliness within the IRA, and some members, with or without permission from higher up, engaged in tit-for-tat killings. According to a police intelligence report, the Provisional IRA leadership reprimanded its South Armagh Brigade for carrying out sectarian killings.
Between the beginning of the truce on 10 February 1975 and the Kingsmill massacre, loyalist paramilitaries killed 35 Catholic civilians in County Armagh or on its borders. In the same period, republican paramilitaries killed 16 Protestant civilians and 17 members of the security forces in the same area. Many of the loyalist attacks have been linked to the Glenanne gang, a secret alliance of loyalist militants, British soldiers from the Ulster Defence Regiment (UDR), and police officers from the Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC). A former member said they wanted to provoke a civil war, believing that when civil war erupted, they could then "crush the other side".
On 31 July 1975, loyalists shot five members of an Irish pop band at Buskhill, killing three. Like the Kingsmill massacre, the band's minibus had been stopped at a fake military checkpoint by gunmen in army uniform. Loyalists carried out two similar attacks over the following month.
On 1 September, gunmen burst into Tullyvallan Orange Hall and shot dead five Protestant civilians, all members of the Orange Order. The attack was claimed by a group calling itself the "South Armagh Republican Action Force". This was the first time the name had been used.
On 19 December, two Catholic civilians were killed and twenty injured when loyalists detonated a car bomb outside a pub in Dundalk, a few miles across the Irish border. Hours later, they killed three more Catholic civilians and injured six in a gun and bomb attack on a pub in Silverbridge. An RUC officer later admitted involvement, and detectives believed other RUC officers and a UDR soldier were also involved.
On 31 December, three Protestant civilians were killed in a bomb attack on a pub in Gilford. The "People's Republican Army" claimed responsibility. It is believed this was a cover name used by members of the INLA. Four days later, on 4 January 1976, loyalists shot dead six Catholic civilians in two co-ordinated attacks. They killed three members of the Reavey family at their home in Whitecross and three members of the O'Dowd family at their home in Ballydougan. The Irish News reported that the killings were revenge for the bombing in Gilford. RUC officer Billy McCaughey admitted taking part and accused another officer of involvement. His colleague, John Weir, said that two police officers and a British soldier were involved.
The HET report found that while the Kingsmill massacre was in "direct response" to the Reavey and O'Dowd killings, the attack had been planned before that. Following earlier loyalist attacks, republicans had apparently decided to "dramatically retaliate" if loyalists struck again. The report said "The murderous attacks on the Reavey and O'Dowd families were simply the catalyst for the premeditated and calculated slaughter of these innocent and defenceless men".
Attack
On 5 January 1976, just after 5:30 pm, a red Ford Transit minibus was carrying sixteen textile workers home from their workplace in Glenanne. Five were Catholics and eleven were Protestants. Four of the Catholics got out at Whitecross and the bus continued along the rural road to Bessbrook. As the bus cleared the rise of a hill, it was stopped by a man in combat uniform standing on the road and flashing a torch. The workers assumed they were being stopped and searched by the British Army. As the bus stopped, eleven gunmen in combat uniform and with blackened faces emerged from the hedges. A man "with a pronounced English accent" began talking. He ordered the workers to get out of the bus and to line up facing it with their hands on the roof. He then asked "Who is the Catholic?". The only Catholic was Richard Hughes. His workmates, now fearing that the gunmen were loyalists who had come to kill him, tried to stop him from identifying himself. However, when Hughes stepped forward the gunman told him to "Get down the road and don't look back".
The lead gunman then said "Right", and the others immediately opened fire on the workers. The eleven men were shot at very close range with automatic rifles, which included Armalites, an M1 carbine and an M1 Garand. A total of 136 rounds were fired in less than a minute. The men were shot at waist height and fell to the ground; some fell on top of each other, either dead or wounded. When the initial burst of gunfire stopped, the gunmen reloaded their weapons. The order was given to "Finish them off", and another burst of gunfire was fired into the heaped bodies of the workmen. One of the gunmen also walked amongst the dying men and shot them each in the head with a pistol as they lay on the ground.
Ten of them died at the scene: John Bryans (46), Robert Chambers (19), Reginald Chapman (25), Walter Chapman (23), Robert Freeburn (50), Joseph Lemmon (46), John McConville (20), James McWhirter (58), Robert Walker (46) and Kenneth Worton (24). Alan Black (then 32) was the only one who survived. He had been shot eighteen times and one of the bullets had grazed his head. He said, "I didn't even flinch because I knew if I moved there would be another one".
After carrying out the shooting, the gunmen calmly walked away. Shortly after, a married couple came upon the scene of the killings and began praying beside the victims. They found the badly wounded Alan Black lying in a ditch. When an ambulance arrived, Black was taken to a hospital in Newry, where he was operated on and survived. The Catholic worker, Richard Hughes, had managed to stop a car and was driven to Bessbrook RUC station, where he raised the alarm. One of the first police officers on the scene was Billy McCaughey, who had taken part in the Reavey killings. He said, "When we arrived it was utter carnage. Men were lying two or three together. Blood was flowing, mixed with water from the rain". Some of the Reavey family also came upon the scene of the Kingsmill massacre while driving to hospital to collect the bodies of their relatives. Johnston Chapman, the uncle of victims Reginald and Walter Chapman, said the dead workmen were "just lying there like dogs, blood everywhere". At least two of the victims were so badly mutilated by gunfire that immediate relatives were prevented from identifying them. One relative said the hospital mortuary "was like a butcher's shop with bodies lying on the floor like slabs of meat".
Nine of the dead were from the village of Bessbrook, while the bus driver, Robert Walker, was from Mountnorris. Four of the men were members of the Orange Order and two were former members of the security forces: Kenneth Worton was a former UDR soldier while Joseph Lemmon was a former Ulster Special Constabulary officer. Alan Black was appointed a Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) in the 2021 New Year Honours, for his cross-community work since the massacre.
Perpetrators
The next day, a telephone caller claimed responsibility for the attack on behalf of the "South Armagh Republican Action Force" or "South Armagh Reaction Force". He said that it was retaliation for the Reavey–O'Dowd killings the night before, and that there would be "no further action on our part" if loyalists stopped their attacks. He added that the group had no connection with the IRA.
The IRA denied responsibility for the killings and was on a ceasefire at the time. It stated on 17 January 1976:
The Irish Republican Army has never initiated sectarian killings, and sectarianism of any kind is abhorrent to the Republican Movement [...] If the loyalist elements responsible for over 300 sectarian assassinations in the past four years stop such killing now, then the question of retaliation from whatever source will not arise.
However, a 2011 report by the HET concluded that Provisional IRA members were responsible and that the event was planned before the Reavey and O'Dowd killings which had taken place the previous day, and that South Armagh Republican Action Force was a cover name. It added: "There is some intelligence that the Provisional IRA unit responsible was not well-disposed towards central co-ordination but there is no excuse in that. These dreadful murders were carried out by the Provisional IRA and none other". Responding to the report, Sinn Féin spokesman Mitchel McLaughlin said that he did "not dispute the sectarian nature of the killings" but continued to believe "the denials by the IRA that they were involved". SDLP Assemblyman Dominic Bradley called on Sinn Féin to "publicly accept that the HET's forensic evidence on the firearms used puts Provisional responsibility beyond question" and to stop "deny[ing] that the Provisional IRA was in the business of organising sectarian killings on a large scale".
According to journalist Toby Harnden, the British Military Intelligence assessment was that the attack was carried out by local IRA members "who were acting outside the normal IRA command structure". According to Harnden, RUC files suggest that 14 IRA members – including future 'Real IRA' leader Michael McKevitt – had met on New Year's Eve to plan the attack. Harnden quotes an alleged South Armagh IRA member, Volunteer M, who said that "IRA members were ordered by their leaders to carry out the Kingsmill massacre". Harnden also quotes Sean O'Callaghan, an IRA member who worked for the security forces as a double agent. O'Callaghan alleged that IRA Chief of Staff, Seamus Twomey, authorised the attack after Brian Keenan argued it was the only way to prevent more Catholics from being killed. However, O'Callaghan said the two men did not consult the IRA Army Council about the attack. Ruairí Ó Brádaigh claims that he and Twomey only learned of the Kingsmill attack after it had happened. According to a police intelligence report, the IRA Army Council reprimanded the South Armagh Brigade six weeks before the massacre for carrying out sectarian killings.
Two AR-18 rifles used in the shooting were found by the British Army in 1990 near Cullyhanna and forensically tested. It was reported that the rifles were linked to 17 killings in South Armagh from 1974 to 1990. Further ballistic studies found that guns used in the attack were linked to 37 killings, 22 attempted killings, 19 non-fatal shootings and 11 finds of spent cartridges between 1974 and 1989. The attacks all took place within the same area and it is likely they were carried out by the same small group.