"The Darkley Gospel Hall Massacre" As the congregation sang the hymn "Are you Washed in the blood of the lamb" the Provisional IRA/Sinn Fein gunmen arrived and murdered three Protestant Church elders, and wounding several others in the congregation. The victims were:- The Massacre of Protestant Church Worshippers as they were at a Sunday evening service was described by the leaders of the four main churches as "an act of sectarian slaughter on a worshipping community which goes beyond any previous deed of violence". As the congregation sang the hymn "Are you Washed in the blood of the lamb" the Provisional IRA/Sinn Fein gunmen arrived and murdered three Protestant Church elders.
Above are photographs taken inside Darkley. Note the child's toy doll and the bible lying on the floor. On the wall are some of the bullet holes as the IRA sprayed innocent civilians in their place of worship with gun fire. The Irish Times reported "William Brown and John Cunningham were standing at the church's back door discussing a friend who was in hospital. Their job was to welcome late comers to the gospel service and find them a seat. The two men were gunned down immediately and died where they fell. Richard Wilson from Keady was standing a few yards away at the inner door. He staggered, wounded, through the double doors in an attempt to raise the alarm. He stumbled the full length of the aisle and died in a small room behind the platform." Pandemonium followed instantly. The killers calmly stepped over the bloodstained helpless bodies already cut down and began firing at the congregation of mainly defenseless women and children. Fathers dived over their young children, and one man covered a 7 month old baby, such was the indiscriminate nature of the attack. Children were screaming hysterically calling for their mothers and fathers who were lying among the upturned pews, prayer books and Bibles. All begged and pleaded for mercy as the gunmen stepped through the bodies and made their way outside. Such was their mudersous intent that they reloaded their guns and sprayed the exterior of the wooden hall before cowardly disappearing into rural landscape.( This paragraph was taken from http://www.victims.org.uk/ FAIR Fair acting for innocent relatives. Please visit this site and learn about the Provisional IRA/Sinn Fein atrocities in South Armagh against the Protestant people .) At least three gunmen were involved in the attack as they wounded seven more people as they fired 40 shots from outside at the thin wooden walls of the building. One of the people injured received five bullet wounds to the stomach, a woman organist had her elbow smashed and another woman was hit in the back. Darkley church is situated on a hill at a Roman Catholic village not far from the border. An article from the Irish times read "The Monaghan border curves less than two miles away. With all its lights blazing the little hall stood out on a hill, the easiest of easy targets." The Pastor who was conducting the service said "It came just like a flash of lightning through the window to us. We didn't understand what was happening until it was half through. Somebody said, "Get down," and everybody dived. The people reacted marvellously. The doctor said he never seen a place for such an atrocity to happen that the people were so calm. Nobody was screaming, nobody was screeching. There were 26 young children under their seats at the front, and except for them nobody cried." The attack took place as the service was being recorded on tape. On the tape could be heard the sound of hymn singing followed by the sharp crack of bullets. Pastor Bain said later he had heard that five young men who heard the tape fell to their knees and accepted the lord. In Israel three trees were planted in memory of the three murdered men. The Pastor said "The men that are dead are in heaven. The men that did this terrible thing, if they do not repent they'll be suffering in hell looking for a drop of cold of water." Testimony of a Darkley Gospel Hall Survivor Recently I have started thinking about something that happened to me a few years back, in fact it will be fifteen years in November, although it does not seem that long. It comes back to me around the same time every year when the kids in our estate start messing about with bangers and other fireworks, not that it ever leaves you, it puts you off leaving the house, it sends my mind racing is it kids or what? Sometimes I dread to think what is going on. After it all happened I used to be afraid when my mum went to work. I used to think what if they came to get us because our photos were in the papers and I would wonder where we could hide if they came to the house and sprayed it with gunfire. That's what went through my head when I was the eleven year old girl who thought she would be safe in Church. My brother was also there with me and so were a few of our friends that we played with. It was that night of all nights that my parents didn't allow us to go. But we sneaked out anyway; we thought she wouldn't notice that we had left the estate, but someone must have told them that we were there. My aunts sister lives near Mountain Lodge in Darkley and she had drove past when the shooting had taken place and my aunt had went and told my mum what had happened. She was frantic with worry not knowing if we were alive or dead. It was fifteen minutes past six o'clock when it all happened. The hymn that was playing was, washed in the blood of the lamb, I don't know why but even before that all happened I never liked that hymn much. Then suddenly, bang, bang and the man behind us shouted at us to get down. At first I though was this a joke? Is it fireworks? But Halloween was over what was going on? The girl I was sitting with was bigger than me, she had landed on top of me, but when I lifted my head to see what was going on a man came running up the aisle with blood coming out of his mouth and holding his stomach, a sight which I will never forget, and which I pray I will never see again and pray my children will never see. My brother, then stood up and seen something red he said they had like red masks on. I didn't dare look I was so scared, when I had seen the blood I knew it was no joke. After the shooting had stopped there were people crying, some dying, even dead. It did not take long before the police came and ambulances came, even then none of us was sure of what had happened. The police then took us out into a hall at the back of the Church, away from where the bodies were lying. I suppose they did not want us to see what was going on, but it was horrible. When I think back now I don't think I realised there was death around me or what death really meant, I shouldn't have known or seen death I was only eleven years old. We did not stay in the hall long before the police escorted us home. On the way home I kept thinking something was going to happen and how much trouble we were going to be in for sneaking off when we were told not to go. When we got home mum was crying and was just glad to see we were ok. My brother went on to bed because he was more afraid of what mum would say. Next day we didn't go to school and a policeman came out and took statements of us. One boy had gone back to school next day to tell his friends all about the ordeal that had taken place the night before. Personally I think there should have been counsellors to talk to each and everyone of us to explain to us what had happened and how to go on. Thankfully most of us coped all right, but it's at times like this, when you hear that prisoners are getting out and getting compensated for doing a short stretch and we have to go on uncompensated, just glad to be here, to be alive and live with when they have done to us and maybe all start again. That is what might happen if the IRA don't disarm. I sometimes have nightmares that they are going to come and takeover the estate, like something you see in a war film. I hope someday there is peace because too many have suffered in this war Catholics as well as Protestants. The above testimony was taken from http://www.victims.org.uk/ FAIR Fair acting for innocent relatives. Please visit this site and learn about the Provisional IRA/Sinn Fein atrocities in South Armagh against the Protestant people. A Memorial to the Victims of the IRA in Darkley Church reads - "In loving Memory of Our Three Elders William Harold Browne, Who were killed by terrorists Survivor of Darkley attacked and beaten by republicans Darkley survivor in horror bus attack - Newsletter dated 8th February 2002 A man who survived one of Northern Ireland's worst terrorist massacres told this week how he was beaten up on a town service bus. And Translink management last night launched an internal investigation into the alleged attack by "five or six" republican assailants. Thirty-year-old Aaron McKendry was a schoolboy when gunmen burst into the Mountain Lodge Pentecostal Church at Darkley, outside Keady, in south Armagh during an evening service in 1983. Three elders died as the congregation was raked with gunfire. Since then, he has suffered from nerves and describes himself as an "easy target" who was not able to defend himself. He claimed he was set upon during the short trip from Alexander Crescent to the Translink depot at Lonsdale Road in Armagh. He said: "I was sitting on the first seat behind the driver when a boy came up from behind me. "My hat got flicked off and another came and sat beside me, hemming me in." He said that, as he tried to free himself, he was set upon by up to six people who kicked and punched him, leaving him with bruising and cuts to his head and body and that his watch was either lost or stolen. He also alleged that, during the course of the incident, the bus driver would not stop or open the door, despite him calling out for him to do so. He claimed the attack continued outside the vehicle, when he was "dragged to the ground, further assaulted and pushed up against a fence" in the vicinity of the Translink depot. Mr McKendry said there was a woman on the bus, but when he asked her to say what had happened, she declined. He added: "There was another woman pulled in then and stopped. She called for a taxi for me. "I was disoriented. I had just seen my life flashing before me. I thought I was going to die." Mr McKendry insisted he has always had "good relations with people from both communities" and had "no bitterness". A police spokesman confirmed that the alleged assault is being investigated. A spokesman for Translink said that, having been made aware of the allegations, they would instigate their own internal investigation and will cooperate fully with police. |
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