Kingsmill ‘joke’ by Sinn Féin MP was depraved, says survivor

THE sole survivor of the Kingsmill massacre has called a Sinn Féin MP’s recent video ‘depraved’ and like ‘dancing on’ the victims’ graves.

Alan Black was the only person left alive after he and ten of his Protestant colleagues were gunned down on January 5, 1976, near Bessbrook, Co. Armagh.

They were shot on the side of the road by men disguised as British soldiers, in what was one of the worst single atrocities of the Troubles.

Last week, on the 42nd anniversary of the atrocity, Barry McElduff posted online a video of himself balancing a loaf of Kingsmill bread on his head.

Mr McElduff has apologised for the video, claiming it was not intended as a reference to the massacre, and has since deleted it.

Yesterday Mr Black rejected Mr McElduff’s apology telling Miriam O’Callaghan on RTÉ Radio 1’s Sunday With Miriam: ‘I have a great loyalty to the boys who died, my friends. And I have a great loyalty to the families of the dead. So to [have] them disrespected the way they were last week is very, very hard to take. It’s a bad time of the year for me, and for the other families.

‘For Barry McElduff to come out and totally disrespect – to my mind it was depraved, what he done. It was dancing on their graves. He seemed to be celebrating their deaths.’

Mr Black also rejected Mr McElduff’s claim that he did not intend any offence. ‘I don’t accept that,’ the former Kingsmill worker said. ‘He did know. He did it deliberately to cause hurt. And he succeeded in spades.’