IN THE NAME OF THE FATHER ‘I’ve no memory of my father at all. Sometimes I think I do when people say, ‘Do you remember the time he had you on his shoulders or something like that, and then you get a wee idea in your head. But that’s all it is a wee idea. I don’t remember him at all.’ Sam McLarnon was two and a half years old when his father, also called Sam, was one of the first victims of the Troubles in August 1969. With Catholic homes along the Crumlin Road coming under attack, and hundreds of Catholics refugees fleeing burning streets, barricades were going up on all outlying vulnerable Nationalist areas. Ardoyne was no different. After 11pm on the evening of the 14 August a loyalist mob followed by B men and the RUC moved into Hooker Street, removing barricades and setting homes alight. The area was in turmoil. ‘We lived in Herbert Street in the old Ardoyne district,’ remembers Sam, ‘They were coming down the street burning houses at the top end, then all of a sudden shooting started and my mother said to my father, I think that’s shooting and he said no, they’re only firing blanks. The next thing there was a crack of gunfire and he was dead. He had been looking out the window.’ ‘In the Scarman report one of the RUC men on patrol that night said he saw other RUC men coming down Herbert Street behind an armoured vehicle, all the lights were out in the street, but our house was lit up. It must have been lit up from the armoured vehicle because all our lights were out and the television was off. He said he saw one RUC man taking careful aim and discharging bullets and the next thing he knew a woman ran out into the street squealing ‘he’s been shot, he’s been shot.’ That was my mother.’ Three bullets entered the McLarnon living room that night. Two struck the wall while the third struck 27 year old father of two, Sam McLarnon, in the forehead. That night the RUC also shot dead 27 year?old Michael Lynch in Ardoyne and wounded 13 other civilians. They claimed that they had been engaged in a gun battle with the IRA. Sam refutes these claims. ‘No RUC man was shot that night. None of their vehicles had markings to suggest that they had been hit and there were no buffet marks on any of the positions that they had taken up that night. That came up in the Scarman report. Scarman said that the RUC did fire the shot that killed my father that night, but could not be held responsible. ‘My father lay on the floor for two hours that night; they wouldn’t let an ambulance into the street. When local men started shouting that a man had been shot, the RUC shouted back ‘and a lot more of youse will be shot.’ ‘Local residents have since told me that the next night the RUC came down the street again and sprayed the houses on either side of our house with bullets and put the story out that there was sporadic gunfire and my father happened to be caught up in it, and that’s basically how it has been until a couple of years ago.’ When working voluntarily with the Saviours of Trauma in 1998 the group became involved in a project whereby children who had lost members of the family through violence were encouraged to tell their story in an exhibition. As Sam was one of the coordinators he was asked to tell his story and was pleased to do so. ‘I know I’m not young anymore but I decided to go ahead with it and wrote ‘My father had been shot dead by the police. I can’t remember the actual incident but I remember the effect it had on my family. My mother received electric shock treatment after it and we were parcelled about.’ ‘It was on show at the Ulster Folk and Transport Museum in Cultra when an RUC officer’s wife saw it and put up a fuss, saying that the RUC have never shot anyone in their front room. There was a big fuss and the museum took it down. But after checking the circumstances of my father’s death they put the quotation back up. ‘This infuriated me, because not only did they deny me my father during my life but they were denying me whatever memories I had of him and denying their part in his murder. After that I decided I wasn’t going to wait another 30 years and decided to push to find out who these men were who killed my father. I’ve now got the names of the men on the patrol the night my father was shot, but none will give up the name of the RUC man who fired the bullets that night. In my book that’s the same as withholding information.’ Two months ago the people of Ardoyne held a public inquiry into the murder of Sam McLarnon. Two hundred people turned up to give evidence and their accounts of what happened on 14 August 1969. ‘It was a great response,’ says Sam. ‘I’ve since found out from speaking to Republicans at the time that there was no gun battle on the night. There were only a couple of rusty guns in Ardoyne at the time and seven bullets. The IRA was crying out for arms and couldn’t get any. ‘Four cops who were on patrol that night were promoted within four months. When my mother was giving birth to Samantha, who was named after my father, they were getting promoted. What message does that send out to Nationalists. In my view what happened in August ‘69 set up what was to happen over the next 30 years because if you can justify those deaths then you can justify other deaths.’ After the murder of Sam McLarnon the family moved out of their Herbert Street home living with family members and trying to settle down in the Bone, Ligoniel and back to Ardoyne. Even now the wider family circle finds it hard to talk about what happened 30 years ago. It brings back too much hurt. ‘My mother was never the same afterwards and was always on tablets, She didn’t like us going out anywhere, especially if there was trouble, but back in the seventies there was trouble in Ardoyne day and daily, we didn’t have much of a childhood. ‘‘It was particularly bad not having a father when you were going to football matches, and you were going there on your own and everybody else had a daddy with them. My sisters would have missed him at Holy Communion time and times like that but for me it was playing football, you always thought to yourself that things would be different if he was there. ‘It’s only since I’ve started investigating the circumstances of the murder that I’ve started to really discover my own life and hopefully now I can bring some closure to this. ‘No one’s going to do time for what happened to my father. I voted for the Good Friday Agreement, but all I want is that anyone who committed a human rights abuse while in the RUC isn’t allowed to be a member of a new police force. I’m not a political person, but anyone in the world would expect that. Patten doesn’t go far enough for me but it is a welcome step along the way. ‘Five people were murdered by the RUC within the space of 24 hours; they were some of the first victims of the Troubles. I would like to know what directive was given on 14 August 1969 which changed the RUC from merely beating Catholics to going out and shooting them.’
Posted on: Sat, 10 Aug 2013 22:42:24 +0000
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