Introduction
As I noted in my previous article, I do not have the resources to confirm if a named individual is definitively the same named individual from source to source. I only include them if the ages and location match that which has been confirmed.
Most articles that I write have something of an arc to them, a conclusion at the end. This one isn’t really like that, it’s more a portrait of elements of a society that were somewhat eclipsed by political conflict.
This article is also an appeal for information. If you know anything about those mentioned, please do get in touch.
1974
Whilst looking into the life of another man for a different piece, I came across an article covering the inquest of Sean McAstocker, who was killed on the 31st March 1974, aged 28. At the time of his death, Mr McAstocker lived in the area of Belfast where I was born.
Early 1960s – Sean McAstocker AKA Eamon Lundy
On 11th October 1962, the Belfast Telegraph reported that two Belfast youths, Eamon Lundy and Hugh Moss, both 19, had been charged with breaking into shops in Clerkenwell, London. Lundy was actually named Sean McAstocker, and had given a police officer named Sedgwick a false name, as well as a false address: Keegan Street, Belfast. Both men were jailed for shop-breaking, Moss for six months, and McAstocker for four.
The Belfast Telegraph also reported, on 28th June 1961, that a 17-year-old man named Eamon Lundy, of 15 Keegan Street, was sentenced to three months in prison having assaulted Albert Donaghy. The article stated that:
District-Inspector E. N. Tease, prosecuting, said that unprovoked attacks were all too frequent and were giving the police considerable trouble, especially in the city centre.
I have no way of knowing if 17-year-old Eamon Lundy is Sean McAstocker.
There does indeed appear to have been an Eamon Lundy who lived at Keegan Street, Belfast. His name appears here. I have also been told that a man named Lundy from Keegan Street was shot and wounded by the British army around the time of internment.
McAstocker’s co-accused – PIRA Volunteer Hugh Moss
Nine years after 19-year-old Hugh Moss spent time in a London prison for shop-breaking with McAstocker, a group of men were arrested at a house in Ardoyne and remanded in custody, facing charges of possession of weapons. The Belfast Telegraph, 26th October 1971, reported that John Patrick “Topper” Deeds (30), Hugh Moss (28), Peter Grimley (28), Joseph Grimley (33), Terence “Cleeky” Clarke (24), and Philip Noel Larkin (20) were charged with possessing a .45 submachine gun with intent and under suspicious circumstances.
All of the men, except Clarke, were charged with involvement in a gun attack upon the Royal Green Jackets that took place in September 1971. The Belfast Telegraph reported on 22nd March 1972 that arms charges had been dropped against Joseph Grimley, Deeds, Larkin, and Moss.
Moss’s comrades in 1971 and 1972 went on to serve jail terms for PIRA activity. “Topper” Deeds was accused of involvement in the abduction and attempted murder of Ronnie Trimble, a man believed by his captors to be member of the UDA, in 1974. Terence “Cleeky” Clarke was named by Kevin Myers as being involved in the murder of the Orr brothers in 1972. Two of Clarke’s brothers would serve life sentences for sectarian murders.
Late 1960s – Sean McAstocker
Now living on Boundary Street, on the lower Shankill, McAstocker was sentenced to three months in prison for assaulting three police officers who arrived to remove from him a pub he refused to leave at closing time. The Belfast Telegraph reported on 9th January 1969 that he pleaded guilty to assault and malicious damage charges.
Later in 1969, McAstocker received prison terms for two incidents.
On 10th June 1969, and with an address at Cromwell Street, McAstocker was sentenced to 12 months in prison for assaulting Mr John Shevlin with a piece of cable. The incident happened on Bankmore Street (where McAstocker gave an address for his second trial in 1969). At court, McAstocker’s mother-in-law, Elizabeth McReynolds, said that: ''[McAstocker] was swinging it [length of cable] and shouting 'any one of you.’”
Mr Shevlin suffered a number of facial fractures in the assault. McAstocker’s lawyer stated that “at the very least, McAstocker had been set upon by other men."
Shevlin claimed that he had been working in the street at the time of the attack.
A 22-year-old man named John Shevlin, of Wilton Street (Shankill area) was given a suspended sentence in 1970 for possession of offensive weapons.
On 19th June 1969, McAstocker was sentenced to four years in prison for robbery with violence. He stole £338 from a bookmakers (equivalent to almost £5k today).
There were no further media reports, that I could find, concerning Sean McAstocker until reports of his murder.
30th March 1973 – the murder of Sean McAstocker
Around 21:15 on 30th March 1973, Sean McAstocker was drinking with a man in a pub (identified by The Times as Charlie Farrell’s) in the Ormeau area. A hooded man entered the premises and approached McAstocker. The Belfast Telegraph (8/10/74) reported that a man drinking with McAstocker gave the following account at the inquest:
This fellow with a hood on came up to Sean and asked him to go with him. Sean replied 'no' and the fellow produced a gun and told him 'are you coming with me, you bastard?'
The witness heard a shot, and then said a second shot was fired towards the ceiling. McAstocker then left the bar with the man. The same article reported:
A scenes of crime officer said the body was found lying behind a wall in a play-ground at the corner of Lagan Street and Turnley Street. Extensive damage had been caused to the head, and in his hand the dead man clutched a balaclava type helmet which had to be prised from him.
McAstocker was beaten before his death, and shot 14 times, with a lawyer for the Northern Ireland Office saying:
Even in the category of murders that Northern Ireland has had to contend with today, this was a particularly cruel and callous one, carried out on an absolutely defenceless man.
The excellent book covering the Official IRA & Workers Party, The Lost Revolution, says that:
... the OIRA 'executed' Sean McAstocker in the Markets after they discovered he was part of a gang that had carried out several brutal killings” (Hanley & Miller).
Robert Risk reported that McAstocker had been subjected to a punishment shooting several weeks beforehand by the PIRA, and that it was them, the Provos, Fisk believed responsible for the killing of McAstocker, on the grounds that he had “attacked a young girl.”
Frederick Davis – murdered 12th July 1973 (killing linked to Sean McAstocker)
Former RAF man Fred Davis was found strangled to death in a house in Seaforde Street, with a note saying “this is for Sammy McCleave” in his pocket. A female witness told the RUC that Davis and two other men went to her house. The two men and the witness played strip poker, while Davis watched. The witness later went to bed, and when she woke up, all of the men had gone (Lost Lives p388 – 378).
The two men were later charged with murder, but cleared. They were Francis Joseph Benson (27), and Peter Paul Rice (26) of Valentine Street (New Lodge). Rice and Benson were brought back from England where they were living at the time, Rice having left Belfast on 17th July. It was reported that Rice had connections with the Provisional IRA. The Official IRA believed that Sean McAstocker was involved in Frank Benson’s death.
Frederick Davis – murdered 12th July 1973 (killing linked to Sean McAstocker)
Former RAF man Fred Davis was found strangled to death in a house in Seaforde Street, with a note saying “this is for Sammy McCleave” in his pocket. A female witness told the RUC that Davis and two other men went to her house. The two men and the witness played strip poker, while Davis watched. The witness later went to bed, and when she woke up, all of the men had gone (Lost Lives p388 – 378).
The two men were later charged with murder, but cleared. They were Francis Joseph Benson (27), and Peter Paul Rice (26) of Valentine Street (New Lodge). Rice and Benson were brought back from England where they were living at the time, Rice having left Belfast on 17th July. It was reported that Rice had connections with the Provisional IRA. The Official IRA believed that Sean McAstocker was involved in Frank Benson’s death.
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| Francis Joseph Benson (AKA Frank, or Frankie Benson - killing linked to Sean McAstocker) |
In 1970, Francis Benson, of North Queen Street, was sentenced to four months in prison for disorderly behaviour and malicious damage. In October 1969, Benson had threatened a publican with a hammer, and later smashed the man’s car windscreen. The publican called the police three times on Benson. Benson attempted to appeal the sentence, only to be told by the Belfast Recorder, Judge Topping, that the appeal bordered on an “abuse” of the process, saying to Benson: “You have been guilty of almost every offence on the criminal calendar."
Later that year, in October, Frank Benson was convicted of assaulting a police officer, having become involved in a row at a family gathering whilst drunk. The man who sentenced him, William Doyle, was killed by the IRA 13 years later.
Peter Paul Rice
In 1965, an 18-year-old named Peter Paul Rice from Nelson Street (New Lodge) was returned to borstal after he created a disturbance in a pub and then kicked the licensee, an elderly woman, in the face after she ejected him and another man, James Patrick MacDermott (a seaman).
In 1971, the Belfast Telegraph reported that a 24-year-old man named Peter Rice from Valentine Street (New Lodge) was sentenced to nine months in prison for rioting. The magistrate initially issued a sentence of three months, but this activated a suspended sentence.
Theorising the killings
McAstocker and many of those linked to him were older than typical IRA volunteers operating in the early 1970s. The activities that brought them to the attention of the police also differed from those carried out by the IRA. However, the early 1970s were a chaotic time, and I believe McAstocker was an “auxiliary” with the Provos, albeit one who fell foul of them. I think it’s probable that Benson was also. Some newspaper reports link him to the Provisionals – but if McAstocker was killed for his part in Benson’s killing, then that would suggest Benson had Official IRA links, or that McAstocker had been involved in killing a different person with Official IRA links. I think either theory is plausible.
I also suspect, but have no proof, that the Provos would have killed McAstocker sooner or later. In 2005, the Irish Independent carried an article about a prime suspect in the murder of Robert McCartney which said:
... this man comes from a family notorious for knife-wielding butchery. In an eerie prequel to the murder of Robert McCartney, the uncle of the prime suspect was part of a drunken Provisional IRA gang that beat and stabbed to death Francis Joseph Benson in November 1973. Benson was punched in an unprovoked attack by the uncle in a bar in the Markets, then others joined in. They dragged the unfortunate Benson, a 28-year-old docker, into an alley off Stewart Street and butchered him, dumping the body in a derelict house.
I initially looked into McAstocker as I was trying to work out who may have been behind an extremely brutal sectarian murder of a Protestant civilian, Samuel White, in December 1972. I couldn’t find any evidence to link McAstocker, or indeed anyone else, to the killing of White. But what I did discover was a thriving violent underworld in the nationalist community which was largely hidden by the intensity of the political violence.
There was the acquisitive and anti-social crime and violence committed by the likes of McAstocker, Benson, and Rice. There were the routine bombings and shootings carried out by the Provos, and at times the feud that erupted between the Sticks and the Provos. And, of course, there was the vicious, bloody, vindictive campaign of loyalist violence against nationalists, as well as frequently brutal persecution by the security forces.
All in all, the nationalist community was subjected to significant violence. Within this, the 1974 murder of 53-year-old Gladys Mayne, bludgeoned to death in her New Lodge home, got very little press. I do not know if anyone was arrested, let along charged with her death. When I read of the violent demise of Ms Mayne, I thought of Peter Paul Rice, a man capable of kicking an elderly woman in the face. But there is no evidence whatsoever to link Rice to Mayne’s murder, and Gladys Mayne was likely killed by someone close to her. I could also find no further information of Peter Paul Rice.
I may write a third part, focusing on violence in and around the New Lodge. I’d be keen to hear from anyone with knowledge of this subject.
I may write a third part, focusing on violence in and around the New Lodge. I’d be keen to hear from anyone with knowledge of this subject.
⏩ Brandon Sullivan is a middle aged, middle management, centre-left Belfast man. Would prefer people focused on the actual bad guys.
While the Republican Movement can have its double standards I doubt "McAstocker was an “auxiliary”". Certainly in the early 70s they were protective of their reputation as political activists/combatants and maintaining the confidence of the community. They were strict about criminality. Plus they would have retaliated against the Stickies if they dared fuck with a member of the Movement. McAstocker's flitting between organisations is consistent with hoods/gangsterism --making deals, trading information or stolen RUC guns etc -as alternative to receiving a punishment beating or worse.
ReplyDeleteI think it was The Times who had him as a Provisional Auxiliary. At the time of his death he was wearing a plaster of Paris on his foot, having been subject of a punishment shooting by the PIRA.
ReplyDeleteI accept the point that the IRA did often strive to keep criminal elements out of their ranks, but in the chaos of the early 70s, vetting was not yet finessed. And McAstocker moved from area to area. I believe he had provisional connections.
The Officials might not have moved unless and until he'd run into bother with the Provisionals.
Like I wrote, I think he was going to die at the hands of republican paramilitaries sooner or later.