Daily Mirror (Northern Ireland)
LET THEM BUTCHER EACH OTHER
Archives reveal MPS’ fury over 1988 murder of British corporals at IRA funeral
BRITISH MPS vowed to “let the Irish get on with butchering each other”, files released today reveal.
The withdrawal demand followed the killing of undercover Army corporals Derek Wood and David Howes at an IRA funeral in West Belfast.
Newly-declassified records show a confidential note by an Irish embassy official written after the murders in 1988 which told how Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher was left “very distressed and very angry” by the brutal deaths.
BRITISH MPS demanded to withdraw from Ireland to let “the Irish get on with butchering each other”, newly-released files reveal.
The dramatic proposal was in response to the killing of two undercover Army corporals at an IRA funeral in Belfast.
Newly-declassified records, released under the 30-year rule, show the murders of Derek Wood and David Howes of the Signals Regiment provoked outrage among MPS at Westminster.
The two soldiers were surrounded by a crowd when they drove into the funeral cortege of a man who had been killed by loyalist Michael Stone days earlier.
The confidential note – entitled “mood at Westminster” – was written by Irish Embassy official Richard Ryan after he spoke to around 20 MPS of “all shades” days after the murders in March 1988.
The diplomat said many MPS who did not take an active interest in affairs here became “puffed with outrage and conviction” about doing something in response to the killings.
Mr Ryan added suggestions ranged from demands for a tougher and revised policy of policing funerals to a demand
for internment throughout Ireland and, in “more cases than previously”, to set a date for withdrawal from Ireland “in order to let the Irish get on with butchering each other”.
Mr Ryan also said people across Britain wrote to their MPS calling for greater action against terrorists.
The two plain-clothed British soldiers inadvertently drove into the path of the IRA member’s funeral before mourners pulled them from the car.
Mr Wood and Mr Howes were beaten before being shot dead by members of the IRA. The killings happened days after the funerals of the three IRA members who were shot dead by the SAS in Gibraltar.
Mr Ryan said after meeting backbenchers at Westminster, he was struck by their exasperation and anger “without any proper sense of how to ventilate it” while there was a resurgence of “frustrated patience” with Ireland.
He added: “The complexity of the issues elude their instinctual approach to policy questions, that of self-interested pragmatism and this further fuels their primary response to events such as last Saturday’s. It has to be said no amount of violence toward the UDR, the RUC and Northern Irish or Irish civilians of any religious persuasion could come anywhere near provoking the same reaction in Britain to Saturday’s killings – and the sort of killings they were – of their own English soldiers.”
Mr Ryan later said there was a risk the Anglo-irish relationship and the Agreement may be “caught in the net” when MPS look for the reasons behind the murders.
Days after the killings, the Secretary of State Tom King made a speech to the House of Commons in which he described the “horrific events” that shocked the world.
In a separate memo from Mr Ryan following a meeting with Conservative MP Edward Leigh, he said Margaret Thatcher was left “very distressed and very angry” by the deaths.
Mr Leigh indicated MPS held special meetings to call for support for “much tougher and direct action” by the SAS and other special units against terrorists.
And Mr Ryan wrote: “He stressed several times he was not exaggerating the mood generally.”