Killed At This Time In 1973: SDLP Senator Paddy Wilson

It is 33 years since the UFF/ UDA murdered SDLP Senator Paddy Wilson and his secretary Irene Andrews.

The bodies of the SDLP General Secretary and Ms. Andrews were found in a quarry on the Hightown Road on the outskirts of Belfast. Paddy had been shot, his throat and wrists had been cut and he had been stabbed 32 times, while Irene Andrews had been stabbed 19 times.

Their bodies were discovered after the RUC received an anonymous tip-off about their disappearance from a source calling himself ‘Captain Black’.

It wasn’t until 1977 that the killer, John White, was caught and convicted of their murder. This is the same John White who was later associated with Johnny Adair.

At the trial, White told the court that “any Roman Catholic would have done”. The judge called it “a frenzied attack, a psychotic outburst”.

Later White would say: “We felt the SDLP was supporting the concept of a united Ireland, therefore giving some support to the armed struggle, to pursue that through violence. We felt that [killing] someone like Paddy Wilson, someone of that calibre, would be seen as someone high up within the nationalist community. That would send a powerful message and strike fear into Catholics.”

John Hume and the then SDLP leader Gerry Fitt were among the politicians who carried Pat’s coffin to Milltown Cemetery in West Belfast where he was buried.

Gerry Fitt, SDLP leader at the time, also had to deal with the daily threat on his life. Just before Paddy Wilson’ murder, the police gave Gerry a personal protection weapon, as it was believed that his life, and the lives of other senior SDLP members were in imminent danger (the death of Paddy Wilson would prove this correct).

Gerry Fitt later said: "He [the RUC Assistant Chief Constable] asked me if I had thirty pounds, and I said I had, and he said he was sending a detective up right away with a gun and a permit. ‘It won't stop the loyalists killing you, Gerry', he said,' but if you fire it in the air when they come at you they'll have to put a bullet through you. They won't get close enough to cut your throat’”

Of course, it would ultimately be so-called Republicans who would force Gerry Fitt out of West Belfast. A crowd of them came baying for his blood and broke into his house in 1976. Shortly after the 1983 General Election (after he had left the SDLP), in which he polled over 10,000 votes but lost his seat to Gerry Adams, they burnt it down.

One of Paddy Wilson’s other pallbearers, John Hume, was no stranger to threats upon his life either. The UDA launched a bombing campaign against the homes of SDLP members in 1993, after it was made public that Hume was meeting with Gerry Adams. Séamus Mallon also received many death threats and had his home attacked for daring to speak out against both loyalist and republican violence.

Rank-and-file SDLP members have also been at the receiving end of violence. Let us not forget the brutal slaughter of the O’Dowd family near Gilford in Co. Down in 1976 at the hands of the UVF. Their only ‘crime’ was that they were in the SDLP.

The man who replaced Paddy Wilson as General Secretary of the SDLP, John Duffy, was also touched by violence. His wife Anne was shot and seriously injured in her house in Oldpark, prompting them to move to Dublin.

Kathleen Feeney, the 14-year-old sister of an SDLP councillor, was shot dead by the IRA in 1973. It was only this time one year ago that the IRA revealed the fact that they were to blame for the murder- for over thirty years they lied to the people of Derry by claiming the British Army was behind the killing (and indeed killed a British soldier in retaliation!)

In the mid-1970s, SDLP headquarters at College Square North was destroyed by a bomb.

Now, I have no desire to give the impression that the SDLP was somehow the only victim of violence. Families of many political and religious persuasions, and none, were at the receiving end of a dirty war. However, in the hierarchy of victimhood which seems to be developing, it is often forgotten that in this part of the world that there were those who did not take up arms in anger, yet were killed simply because they stood up for what the believed in.

The SDLP may not trade on the suffering many of its members endured, but that doesn’t lessen what many of the party’s activists had to bear.

Ulster Unionist Edgar Graham was shot dead by the IRA at Queen’s. Sinn Féin councillor Eddie Fullerton was murdered by the UDA at Buncrana. The killers of the former would claim justification because the Ulster Unionists supported the UDR and the British presence in Ireland. These killers are wrong. Those who killed the latter person would claim it was ok because Sinn Féin was linked to the IRA. This was not an excuse to murder someone.

But for those who died or were threatened because they were in the SDLP, it was simply because they were democratic nationalists that they were targeted. The paper-thin ‘excuses’ that were used to kill people from other organisations couldn’t even be applied to the SDLP. They never took up arms. They never killed anyone. They never supported any paramilitary organisation. Yet they were targeted simply because they were in the SDLP and because they held their own beliefs.

On the anniversary of the murder of SDLP stalwart Paddy Wilson, I would like to pay respect to all those people who have faced-down threats to their lives and safety to stand up for what they believe in and to secure a better and more peaceful future for this corner of the island. Some of them, like Paddy Wilson, died to bring that better future, so it is incumbent upon all democrats to ensure that those ideals are implemented.