Key Events & Deaths on this day in Northern Ireland Troubles
21st June
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Friday 21 June 1968
The annual conference of the Nationalist Party unanimously approved of the protest action by Austin Currie in Caledon, County Tryone on 20 June 1968.
Tuesday 21 June 1977
The unemployment figures showed that the number of people out of work stood at 60,000, the highest June total for 37 years.
Wednesday 21 June 1978
Three members of the Irish Republican Army (IRA) and a passing Protestant civilian were shot dead by undercover members of the British Army during an attempted bomb attack on a Post Office depot, Ballysillan Road, Belfast.
Monday 21 June 1982
The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) arrested four men in New York who they claimed were trying to buy surface-to-air missiles on behalf of the Irish Republican Army (IRA).
Sunday 21 June 1992
Sinn Féin (SF) held its annual Wolfe Tone commemoration in County Kildare. Jim Gibney, then a leading member of SF, said that a British withdrawal from Northern Ireland would have to be preceded by a period of peace and negotiations involving Nationalists and Unionists.
[Some commentators took this as a sign that SF and the Irish Republican Army (IRA) were considering ending the ‘armed struggle’.]
Tuesday 21 June 1994
The Irish Times (a Dublin based newspaper) reported an interview with Albert Reynolds, then Taoiseach (Irish Prime Minister).
Reynolds said that cross-border institutions with executive powers would be required in return for any changes to Articles 2 and 3 of the Irish Constitution.
Unionist councillors on Belfast City Council voted to remove Alex Attwood, then Social Democratic and Labour Party (SDLP) councillor, from his committee chair. He had been the only Nationalist chairing a
Friday 21 June 1996
Hundreds of Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) officers escorted an Orange march through north Belfast. There were riots following the parade in Catholic areas of Belfast. Gareth Parker (23), a Catholic man, died following a beating he received near the Shaftesbury Inn in north Belfast.
Saturday 21 June 1997
Loyalist paramilitaries carried out a booby-trap bomb attack on a car in Claremont Street in south Belfast.
Three men were injured in the attack.
Séan Connolly, a Catholic priest based at the chapel in Harryville, Ballymena, announced that services would be suspended until 8 September 1997.
The Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) had informed Connolly that it could not guarantee the safety of those wishing to attend services at the chapel on 12 July 1997.
The decision to suspend the services over the ‘marching season’ was taken following 41 weeks of picketing by Loyalists outside the chapel.
Monday 21 June 1999
The BBC ‘Panorama’ programme alleged that Ronnie Flanagan, then Chief Constable of the Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC), told a UN rapporteur that some lawyers in Ireland “were working for a paramilitary agenda”. Flanagan denied the claim.
The programme also alleged there had been collusion between RUC officers and Loyalist paramilitaries.
The results of a survey sponsored by the Parades Commission were published. Of those people questioned a majority of Protestants and Catholics agreed that the Loyal Orders should enter direct talks with residents groups and also with the Parades Commission.
A majority of Protestants questioned disagreed with the rulings reached by the Comission. Mary Freehill, then member of the Irish Labour party, and Damian Wallace, then a member of Fianna Fáil (FF), were elected Lord Mayor of Dublin and Cork respectively.
Fine Gael warned its councillors not to enter any voting pacts with Sinn Féin until there was a resolution of the decommissioning impasse.
Thursday 21 June 2001
There was another Loyalist blockade of the road to the Catholic Holy Cross Girls’ Primary School in Ardoyne, north Belfast. Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) officers advised children and parents not to attempt to enter the school.
Eventually about 60 of the school’s 230 pupils entered the school throught the grounds of another school.
Gerry Kelly, then a senior member of Sinn Féin (SF), said:
“It’s like something out of Alabama in the 1960s”.
Three Protestant families left their homes in Ardoyne Avenue, north Belfast, after they said that they were afraid of a Nationalist attack.
During the evening and night there were serious distrubances in the area around the Holy Cross school. Loyalists fired ten shots, and threw six blast bombs and 46 petrol bombs at police lines
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Remembering all innocent victims of the Troubles
Today is the anniversary of the death of the following people killed as a results of the conflict in Northern Ireland
“To live in hearts we leave behind is not to die
– Thomas Campbell
To the innocent on the list – Your memory will live forever
– To the Paramilitaries –
There are many things worth living for, a few things worth dying for, but nothing worth killing for.
11 People lost their lives on the 21st June between 1972 – 1991
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21 June 1972
Kerry McCarthy (19)
nfNI
Status: British Army (BA),
Killed by: Irish Republican Army (IRA)
Shot by sniper while on sentry duty outside Victoria Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) / British Army (BA) base, Derry
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21 June 1973
Barry Gritten (29)
nfNI
Status: British Army (BA),
Killed by: Irish Republican Army (IRA)
Killed by booby trap bomb in unoccupied building, Lecky Road, Bogside, Derry.
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21 June 1973
David Smith (31)
nfNI
Status: British Army (BA),
Killed by: Irish Republican Army (IRA)
Killed by booby trap bomb while searching derelict house, Ballycolman, Strabane, County Tyrone.
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21 June 1973
David Walker (16)
Protestant
Status: Civilian (Civ),
Killed by: Official Irish Republican Army (OIRA)
Found shot in entry off O’Neill Street, Falls, Belfast.
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21 June 1974
Stanley Lemon (51)
Protestant
Status: Civilian (Civ),
Killed by: non-specific Loyalist group (LOY)
Shot as he arrived at his workplace, Shore Road, Skegoneill, Belfast. Mistaken for a Catholic.
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21 June 1976
Sydney McAvoy (50)
Protestant
Status: ex-Ulster Defence Regiment (xUDR),
Killed by: Irish Republican Army (IRA)
Shot at his shop, The Old Wheel Stores, Upper Dunmurry Lane, Dunmurry, near Belfast, County Antrim.
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21 June 1978
Denis Brown (28)
Catholic
Status: Irish Republican Army (IRA),
Killed by: British Army (BA)
Shot by undercover British Army (BA) members, during attempted IRA bomb attack on Post Office depot, Ballysillan Road, Belfast.
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21 June 1978
William Mailey (30)
Catholic
Status: Irish Republican Army (IRA),
Killed by: British Army (BA)
Shot by undercover British Army (BA) members, during attempted IRA bomb attack on Post Office depot, Ballysillan Road, Belfast.
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21 June 1978
James Mulvenna (28)
Catholic
Status: Irish Republican Army (IRA),
Killed by: British Army (BA)
Shot by undercover British Army (BA) members during attempted IRA bomb attack on post office depot, Ballysillan Road, Belfast.
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21 June 1978
William Hanna (28)
Protestant
Status: Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF),
Killed by: British Army (BA)
Shot by undercover British Army (BA) members, during attempted Irish Republican Army (IRA) bomb attack on Post Office depot, Ballysillan Road, Belfast. He was walking past at the time of the incident. Assumed to be an IRA member.
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21 June 1991
Mary Perry (26)
Catholic
Status: Civilian (Civ),
Killed by: not known (nk)
Abducted somewhere in the Portadown area, County Armagh. Found beaten to death, on information supplied anonymously, buried in field, near Mullaghmore, County Sligo, on 30 June 1992.
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Belfast Child 