Mary Travers (murder victim)

Mary Travers (murder victim)

Mary Travers was a teacher killed by the IRA on the 8 April, 1984.

Contents

Overview

Travers was a twenty-two year old Catholic and one of two daughters of Tom Travers, a magistrate. She, her father, and mother, had just left St Brigid's Catholic Church in Derryvolgie Avenue in south Belfast when gunmen opened fire on the group. She was deliberately shot in the back and her father was seriously wounded, but her mother escaped injury because the gun that was being pointed at her face jammed twice.

In a long letter published in the Irish Times in 1994, Tom Travers wrote:

"Mary's murder was carried out by member of an evil and brutal criminal organisation. Some of her killers were members of the murder machine, self-named Provisional IRA. At least one was a member of political Sinn Fein... May I say that on the day my lovely daughter was murdered her killer tried to murder my darling wife also. At that time Mary lay dying on her mum's breast, her gentle heart pouring its pure blood on to a dusty street in Belfast. The murderer's gun, which was pointed at my wife's head, misfired twice. Another gunman shot me six times. As he prepared to fire the first shot I was the look of hatred on his face, a face I will never forget."

Aftermath

Retired detective superintendent Alan Simpson wrote in the Belfast Telegraph on the 11 June, 2011 that he believed the shooting of the Travers family was revenge for a successful prosecution in the murder of William McConnell.

Joseph Patrick Haughey was later charged in connection with the murder. However, Haughey was acquitted after doubt was cast over Mr Travers' identification of the gunman. Twenty years later it was claimed that he was a long-time double agent for the British secret service (see Freddie Scappaticci).

Apppointment controversy

Mary McArdle, convicted for her part in the murder, was released under the terms of the Belfast Agreement.

In 2011, she was appointed Ministerial Special Adviser to Sinn Féin Culture Minister Carál Ní Chuilín. This move led to outrage that a convicted IRA murderer could hold such a post. Mary Travers' sister, Anne, called on McArdle to resign. In response, McArdle told the Andersonstown News that the killing was "a tragic mistake." McArdle's statement was rebutted by Mary Travers' sister, Anne, who stated:

"Mistake? Mistake? My sister was murdered. There were two gunmen, one standing over my dad shooting him and one who shot my sister in the back and attempted to murder my mother but the bullets jammed in the gun. The fact that she [McArdle] calls my sister’s murder a mistake, well, that day two gunmen went with two guns, so if they were just planning to kill my dad, why did they go out with two guns. They knew my dad wasn’t armed. After 27 years I’d have thought I’d be able to speak about my sister’s murder factually and without grief but when I heard of Mary McArdle’s appointment last Thursday it did something to me which I just have not been able to contain the grief it brought back. Rather than Mary McArdle and Sinn Fein saying her death was a mistake, what they should be saying is Mary Travers’ murder is an embarrassment which has come back to haunt them."

Her brother, Paul Travers, who now lives in Australia, said to the Belfast Telegraph in July 2011:

"In 2011 we are told to put the past behind us and move on," he said. "I go home every year to visit my family and notice the murals to the hunger strikers are lovingly maintained. My sister Mary did not starve herself to death. She was murdered by those who now claim to be the 'peacemakers'. Mary has no mural. However, her memory is as alive to me now as it was 27 years ago when I travelled with her bloodied body in the ambulance to the Ulster Hospital. It is the same for the other victims of the Troubles."

Travers made an open appeal to Sinn Fein to work with the Historical Enquiries Team and determine who killed his sister:

"You compare yourselves to Nelson Mandela. Well then, do as he did, if you are brave enough. Embrace the need for genuine truth and reconciliation and support the very institutions, such as the Historical Enquiries Team, that have been established to find it. Don't ignore them. Tell us who committed these foul atrocities. It seems to me that you selectively support those aspects of the 1998 peace agreement that suit you and not the ones that don't. You did the same thing during the Troubles. It is not acceptable now. You are the ones who will not move on. You are the ones who perpetuate hurt and promote your brand of hatred. You are the ones who fear the truth. What are you scared of, now you no longer have your guns?"

See also

External links

References

  • Lost Lives:The stories of the men, women and children who died as a result of the Northern Ireland troubles, McKittrick, Kelters, Feeney, Thompson, 1999, (2006). ISBN 1 84018 227 X.

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