On a quiet Sunday afternoon in Gibraltar on March 6, 1988 ,undercover British agents executed 3 members of an unarmed Provisional IRA unit, Sean Savage, Dan McCann and Mairéad Farrell shot.at close range as they lay wounded on the ground.
Their deaths were controversial as several eye witnesses confirmed that they were all were unarmed and with their hands up,The three were believed at the time to be mounting a bombing attack on British military personnel in Gibraltar.
What is undeniable is that just before four that afternoon – just two or three minutes after SAS soldiers took control from the Gibraltar authorities – all three IRA Activists were brought down in a hail of 29 bullets, 16 pumped into Savage alone. A police siren sounded, and two soldiers leaped over a barrier as Farrell and McCann lay dying in the road leading to the Spanish border. A few seconds later and another volley of shots brought down Savage as he headed up an alleyway back towards the town.
The gunning down of three unarmed IRA Activists on the streets of Gibraltar by the SAS has continued to haunt the British government. The March 1988 executions led to a cycle of death in the north of Ireland, re-opened claims that the government operated a ‘shoot-to kill’ policy and, yet again, called into question the reputation of British justice.
The British media at the time with the exception of Thames TVs Death on the Rock", repeated the British Army propoganda that the three were armed and the local eyewitness were lying. At the inquest into the deaths held in Gibraltar the jury returned a verdict of lawful killing by a 9–2 majority. The coroner in summing up of the evidence to the jury told them to avoid an open verdict. The 9-2 verdict is the smallest majority allowed. Paddy McGrory, lawyer for Amnesty International, believed that it had been a "perverse verdict," and that it had gone against the weight of the evidence.
The relatives of McCann, Savage and Farrell were dissatisfied with the response to their case in the British legal system, so they took their case to the European Court of Human Rights in 1995. The court found that the three had been unlawfully killed By a 10–9 majority it ruled that the human rights of the 'Gibraltar Three' had been infringed in breach of Article 2 – right to life, of the European Convention on Human Rights and criticised the authorities for lack of appropriate care in the control and organisation of the arrest operation. For many it was cold state-sanctioned murder, at point blank range.
When the bodies came through Dublin Airport, all the staff stopped with their heads bowed and prayed as a mark of respect.
There was also shock at the time as to how a woman like Mairead could have become involved with the IRA. To Mairead, however her membership was a logical decision made as a result of a political analysis drawn from both political experience and a study of Irish history,
Mairead was born in Belfast on the 3rd August 1957, the second youngest of six children and the only girl. She was twelve when the British Army took over the streets of Belfast in 1969. This subsequently led to her being politicized.
" It was relavent of growing up in the Falls, we had to pass the Brits during the curfews you could only get out for a certain number of hours. We were all victims of the British occupation really you just accepted that you would be involved to defend your country. " She joined the IRA and said later, "A lot of 17 to 19 year olds were involved, maybe looking back I was very young then but I was politically aware I know rhat now because my views haven't changed if anything I have become stronger, more committed. "
In 1976 she was arrested after taking part in the IRA's campaign. She was convicted of possesion of explosives and membership of the IRA and sentenced to fourteen and a half years imprisonment. Mairead was sentenced at a crucial turning point in British policy and was to become the leader of the women in Armagh jail when the republican struggle was focussed on the prisoners.
When Mairead entered Armagh in April 1976 she was the first woman republican prisoner to be sentenced under the new regulations and was refused special category status. She was isolated from the Republican organization in Armagh and only able to talk to the other fifty or so republican women for ten minutes after Mass on Sundays. She began a “no work protest” against the loss of special category status, “I knew now the battle would begin - the real battle - that the struggle would be a long and lonely one for us all
As other newly sentenced women entered Armagh they joined Mairead in protests. Mairead became Commanding Officer. ‘There was no kudos in it, I had to take decisions that would effect all the prisoners. There were times I felt very alone, even though I knew I had the support of the others at all times.’
The dirty protest that began on 7th February 1980 was forced on Mairead and her comrades. The Republican women were able to wear their own clothes; they were all dressed in black skirts and white blouses at a ceremony to honour Delaney. A week later, to crush this example of organised solidarity, a squad of 60 male and female warders surrounded the women at lunch time. Tim Pat Coogan stated that the women “were kicked and punched until order was restored’ Their cells were searched and wrecked by the warders and after the women were returned to their cells, “Men in riot gear armed with batons appeared in the cells again. The girls (sic) were beaten and carried down the stairs to the guard room to receive their punishment. The toilets were locked and they were confined to their cells for 24 hours.’
Mairead described the events to her parents: We were not allowed exercise nor out to the toilet or to get washed. We were locked up for 24 hours and allowed nothing to eat or drink. Male officers are still on the wing, they have not left and are running the wing got something to eat still not allowed use of toilet facilities. We have been forced into a position of “Dirt Strike’ as our pots are overflowing with urine and excrement. We emptied them out of the spy holes into the wing. The male officers nailed them closed.” Then later: ‘Male officers are still running the wing Lynn O’Connell was beaten twice, the second time was the worst. The officers jumped her as she was going out to the yard her face is badly swollen and cut.’
In early April 1980 Mairead wrote to her relatives, “The stench of urine and excrement clings to the cells and our bodies. No longer can we empty the pots out the window as the male screws have boarded them up regardless of day or night, the cells are dark for 23 hours a day we lie in these celIs’ The protest lasted 13 months. It was to Mairead the most frightening time of her imprisonment. Women were locked in pairs in cells measuring 3m x 2m (9ft x 6ft). During this time, Mairead told Tim Pat Coogan, “We are in a war situation. We have been treated in a special way and tried in special courts because of the war and because of our political activities. We want to be regarded as prisoners of war.
On 1st December 1980, Mairead, Mary Doyle and Mairead Nugent went on hunger strike in united action with the men in the Long Kesh ‘H Blocks. Afterwards she recalled how important was the support received from outside and also how she hated the distress caused to her parents. She continued on hunger strike until 19th December when it seemed the N.I.O. had agreed to the prisoners’ demands. This agreement was then retracted.
The Dirty Protest was called off in January 1981 in preparation for the second hunger strike in the H Blocks on 1st March 1981. A difficult decision not to join this was made by the women prisoners. It was the worst time for them as the women waited for news of the deaths, “I know it will be more difficult this time to win anything. It will take longer for the pressure to build up.” At the end of the interview Mairead said, “I am a volunteer in the Irish Republican Army and a political prisoner in Armagh jail. I am prepared to fight to the death, if necessary, to win the recognition that I am a political prisoner and not a criminal.’
In December 1982 strip searching was introduced at Armagh. The women republican prisoners refused to undergo these searches that were made before women were allowed out of the prison. Her last inter-prison visit to see her fiancee in Long Kesh was in October 1982 and she did not see him again until her release four years later. The remand prisoners suffered most from strip searching as they were searched before and after court hearings and were subject to regular beatings. The women republican prisoners ended their resistance to strip searching because of the fear of increasingly serious assaults. Mairead was strip searched on her release from Maghaberry Prison, “I felt it was the final insult. It’s designed as psychological torture, as a way of intimidating us.” Looking back on years in prison she saw them as teaching her the real values in life and making her more committed to her political beliefs.
During her last years of imprisonment, Mairead took Open University courses in Politics and Economics, and gained a place at Queen’s University on her release. She worked with the Strip Searching Campaign, speaking at meetings all over Ireland. She then reported back to the IRA. Just before her death she said, “You have to be realistic, you realise that ultimately you’re either going to be dead or end up in jail.”
“Everybody keeps telling me I’m a feminist. I just know I’m me and I think I’m as good as anyone else and that particularly goes for any man. I’m a socialist, definitely, and I’m a republican. I believe in a united Ireland; a united socialist Ireland, definitely socialist. Capitalism provided no answer at all for our people and I think that’s the Brit’s main interest in Ireland. Once we remove the British that isn’t it, that’s only the beginning.”
When their bodies came through Dublin Airport, in the aftermath of the shooting all the staff stopped with their heads bowed and prayed as a mark of respect, following these events violenc would escalate in the Belfast area and resulted in at least six further deaths. At the funeral of the 'Gibraltar Three' on 16 March 1988, three mourners were killed in a gun and grenade attack by loyalist paramilitary Michael Stone in the Milltown Cemetery attack.
After Mairéad''s death it would lead to this hauntingly beautiful tribute “The Ballad of Mairéad Farrell”, by Seanchai and The Unity Squad, with vocals by Rachel Fitzgerald. In 2008 Sinn Féin asked to hold an International Women's Day event in the Long Gallery at Stormont commemorating Farrell. The Assembly Commission which runs the Stormont estate ruled that it could not go ahead. Heroine or villainess, she remains an interesting human being. To the people of Falls Road she was a patriot. To the British she was a terrorist. To her family she was a victim of Irish history and a product of her environment.This elegy, this song and this history to this day has a sort of tragic, beautiful complexity to it.
Do not stand at my grave and weep
I am not there I do not sleep
Do not stand at my grave and cry
while Ireland lives I do not die
A woman's place is not at home
The fight for freedom it still goes on
I took up my gun until freedoms day
I pledged to fight for the IRA
In Armagh jail i served my time
Strip searches were a british crime
Degraded me yet they could not see
I'd suffer this to see Ireland free
Gibraltar Rock was the place I died
McCann and Savage were by my side
I heard the order so loud and true
Of thatchers voice said "SHOOT TO KILL"
So do not stand at my grave and weep
I am not there i do not sleep
Do not stand at my grave and cry
While Ireland lives I do not die
While Ireland lives I do not die
