Introduction
Fifty years ago this week, Billy Hutchinson and his accomplice, Tom Winstone, drove a short distance from the Shankill Road onto the Falls Road and shot dead two men, half-brothers Michael Gerard Loughran (18), and Eric Edward Morgan (27). I’ve chosen to quote in full what a cousin of the murdered men wrote some years ago when the murders came to prominence in the media, this time because of what Hutchinson said about them:
Billy. It was murdering Catholics. For being Catholics.
The morning you turned your car round to drive down the Falls and kill them is as clear now for me as it was 40 years ago.
My cousins were labourers, as was their father. They wanted to get a black taxi down the Falls but there was only room for one. The father got in and they walked. You killed them because they were there. You’d have shot their father, a Protestant, as well if he had been with them.
I had just turned 12 and was sitting in a huge new school when I was taken out of class to see my father, waiting in the school office. I spent the next two days watching thousands of people, young and old, come through the open door of my granny’s tiny living room in a terrace house off the Springfield Road where my cousin Eric had lived. A few albums on a shelf (Tubular Bells at the front), a pile of Military Modelling magazines, a box of paints and miniscule brushes for painting tiny pewter Napoleonic figures for war games – and that was it; all he left.
And the sobbing, the uncontrollable sobbing, of my father bent over his coffin in front of thousands in a packed St Paul’s on the morning of the burial, that brought embarrassment to a selfish 12-year-old boy.
I have the bus token and the few coins he had in his pocket from that morning.
I have the pewter figures, painted by a solitary man who wanted to escape from the world around him.
I’ve been back to Cupar Street and Bombay Street to see their names on the memorial. They aren’t in the republican section, Billy. There were no death notices, flags or paramilitary displays – then or since – because there was no reason to have them there. (highlights mine)
The “intelligence” you speak of; was it simply one or both of them looked familiar? Maybe you had burnt them out of their house a few years before? Was it the same intelligence that everyone who was a taig was a Provie? The same “intelligence” that Gusty Spence, a relative of my father, had used in 1966 to do just what you did that clear, sharp October morning?
The idea that any taig will do, Billy? Well it won’t.
The IRA didn’t kill them, Billy. You did. And it is you who has to live with that.
I found this to be a far, far more eloquent and damning criticism of sectarian murder than anything I have managed to write, or indeed anyone else, and in its simplicity and honesty, leaves little room for anything beyond cliched and offensive rebuttals. I salute the man who wrote this.
Billy Hutchinson’s Rationale for the Murders he Committed
26 years ago, Billy Hutchinson swallowed slowly when Peter Taylor asked him about the double murder he was convicted of. The interview was taking place on the seminal “Loyalists” BBC series. Hutchinson looked uncomfortable, and muttered something about it “being 25 years ago” adding that he had “no regrets” and that he had been “part of a war, and that war had to be fought.”
In an Irish Times interview in 2020, he had this to say:
That seems to me that Billy endorsed the loyalist campaign of murdering Catholics, for being Catholics, exactly as the cousin of Michael Loughran and Edward Morgan said.
However, in his autobiography, written with Gareth Mulvenna, he gave this account:
In 2014, he said this:
He said his view was he “was fighting a war” and that the “IRA left me with no option”.
Hutchinson claims to have “evidence” demonstrating that the two men he murdered were “active republicans.”
Hutchinson appeared on the Good Listener podcast, and in a wide-ranging interview had this to say about the double murder:
The interviewer asked “meaning … mean what?”
Hutchinson went on:
This interested me. I had previously searched the British and Irish newspaper archives, and could find no death notices. I then went into the Linenhall Library and asked to see microfilm of the Irish News from October 1974. There were indeed a number of death notices for Michael Loughran and Edward Morgan, 35 in total. Mostly from parents, uncles, grandparents, and a particularly poignant one from a girlfriend of one of the men. There were also notices from a residents association, neighbours, and the “shopkeepers and residents” of Springfield Road.
There was not a single notice from a “cumann”. However, two that were of immediate interest were from “John Wilson, Magilligan” and “Finbarr McKenna, A Wing, Crumlin Road Jail.”
Finbarr McKenna, like the murdered men, was a Clonard man. A mural commemorates him and his death attempting to bomb Springfield Road barracks in 1987. John Wilson, I couldn’t find much information on, but I don’t think he was anything beyond an IRA auxiliary.
The relevance of two IRA men leaving death notices.
Hutchinson, in his memoir, tells this story about a friend of his who was not involved in any paramilitary organisation:
The men Hutchinson murdered had a family home on Cupar Street. If Loughran and Morgan were indeed IRA members, would they have ventured to within yards of the Shankill Road, where Hutchinson says he observed them and murdered them?
And if the IRA had murdered the man mentioned in the quoted paragraph above, and Hutchinson left a death notice, would that have been justification for the killing? If having two death notices from paramilitaries was evidence of being a paramilitary, virtually every single man in Hutchinson’s Shankill Road community would be “legitimate targets” according to his own rationale.
The fact is that, at that time, many young men from close-knit communities were ending up in prison for paramilitary activities. They had networks of friends and relatives outside their organisations. That is natural and to be expected.
The Irish News Archive contains the Andersonstown News from 1972. There is not a single notice for Loughran or Morgan in it, though their murder is discussed. There is an article about Finbarr McKenna, from September 1974, alleging torture and abuse he and his family endured at the hands of the British army in September 1974, a few weeks before he had a notice placed for his friends.
I am left considering what the cousin of Loughran and Morgan said about there being “no death notices” – Hutchinson must surely have read what that man said about his actions, and still he said on a popular podcast that there were indeed death notices that proved his victims were “active republicans.”
I have not been able to find a single shred of evidence that either of the murdered men were anything other than labourers, with a Protestant father, who had the misfortune of either encountering Hutchinson on that day randomly, or someone, somewhere, claiming they were something that they were not.
I wonder if Billy Hutchinson would do his victim’s families the courtesy of saying where these damning death notices actually are?
⏩Brandon Sullivan is a middle-aged West Belfast émigré. He juggles fatherhood & marriage with working in a policy environment and writing for TPQ about the conflict, films, books, and politics.
Billy. It was murdering Catholics. For being Catholics.
The morning you turned your car round to drive down the Falls and kill them is as clear now for me as it was 40 years ago.
My cousins were labourers, as was their father. They wanted to get a black taxi down the Falls but there was only room for one. The father got in and they walked. You killed them because they were there. You’d have shot their father, a Protestant, as well if he had been with them.
I had just turned 12 and was sitting in a huge new school when I was taken out of class to see my father, waiting in the school office. I spent the next two days watching thousands of people, young and old, come through the open door of my granny’s tiny living room in a terrace house off the Springfield Road where my cousin Eric had lived. A few albums on a shelf (Tubular Bells at the front), a pile of Military Modelling magazines, a box of paints and miniscule brushes for painting tiny pewter Napoleonic figures for war games – and that was it; all he left.
And the sobbing, the uncontrollable sobbing, of my father bent over his coffin in front of thousands in a packed St Paul’s on the morning of the burial, that brought embarrassment to a selfish 12-year-old boy.
I have the bus token and the few coins he had in his pocket from that morning.
I have the pewter figures, painted by a solitary man who wanted to escape from the world around him.
I’ve been back to Cupar Street and Bombay Street to see their names on the memorial. They aren’t in the republican section, Billy. There were no death notices, flags or paramilitary displays – then or since – because there was no reason to have them there. (highlights mine)
The “intelligence” you speak of; was it simply one or both of them looked familiar? Maybe you had burnt them out of their house a few years before? Was it the same intelligence that everyone who was a taig was a Provie? The same “intelligence” that Gusty Spence, a relative of my father, had used in 1966 to do just what you did that clear, sharp October morning?
The idea that any taig will do, Billy? Well it won’t.
The IRA didn’t kill them, Billy. You did. And it is you who has to live with that.
I found this to be a far, far more eloquent and damning criticism of sectarian murder than anything I have managed to write, or indeed anyone else, and in its simplicity and honesty, leaves little room for anything beyond cliched and offensive rebuttals. I salute the man who wrote this.
Billy Hutchinson’s Rationale for the Murders he Committed
26 years ago, Billy Hutchinson swallowed slowly when Peter Taylor asked him about the double murder he was convicted of. The interview was taking place on the seminal “Loyalists” BBC series. Hutchinson looked uncomfortable, and muttered something about it “being 25 years ago” adding that he had “no regrets” and that he had been “part of a war, and that war had to be fought.”
In an Irish Times interview in 2020, he had this to say:
The “strategy” from loyalist paramilitaries was “that if they killed enough Catholics then the Catholic community would in turn put pressure on the IRA to disband,” writes Hutchinson. “This was pure sectarianism, and it didn’t work ... at the time, however, I truly believed that if we pushed the Catholic community to the edge, they would go begging the IRA to stop their terror campaign.
However, in his autobiography, written with Gareth Mulvenna, he gave this account:
Loughran and Morgan had been identified as active republicans by the YCV (Young Citizen Volunteers). How accurate the information was, I don’t know. At 7:30 a.m. our active service unit had spotted them on the Falls Road and assassinated the two men as they passed the junction of Northumberland Street, just yards from the Shankill.
In 2014, he said this:
Asked if he regretted killing the two Catholics, Mr Hutchinson told the News Letter : "What I'm saying is that I regret every murder, but let's be clear that it's very easy for you to say that, but what I will say to you is that I didn't do anything without intelligence."
He said his view was he “was fighting a war” and that the “IRA left me with no option”.
Hutchinson claims to have “evidence” demonstrating that the two men he murdered were “active republicans.”
Hutchinson appeared on the Good Listener podcast, and in a wide-ranging interview had this to say about the double murder:
I can tell you now, there was evidence against them and that’s the issue, but because I know what I don’t want to do is annoy people who are victims. So for that very reason, it’s very simple, it’s been in the papers, it’s been repeated a hundred times, so like there’s nothing more than I can tell you that hasn’t been in the papers but you know, from our point of view, our intelligence was good and it was proven, it just wasn’t anything else. But, you know, all you’ve got to do is look at the death notices and see who had it in.
The interviewer asked “meaning … mean what?”
Hutchinson went on:
Meaning the IRA Cumanns (Irish for Unit or Branch) had them in … you don’t put that in for people who aren’t in a Cumann.
This interested me. I had previously searched the British and Irish newspaper archives, and could find no death notices. I then went into the Linenhall Library and asked to see microfilm of the Irish News from October 1974. There were indeed a number of death notices for Michael Loughran and Edward Morgan, 35 in total. Mostly from parents, uncles, grandparents, and a particularly poignant one from a girlfriend of one of the men. There were also notices from a residents association, neighbours, and the “shopkeepers and residents” of Springfield Road.
There was not a single notice from a “cumann”. However, two that were of immediate interest were from “John Wilson, Magilligan” and “Finbarr McKenna, A Wing, Crumlin Road Jail.”
Finbarr McKenna, like the murdered men, was a Clonard man. A mural commemorates him and his death attempting to bomb Springfield Road barracks in 1987. John Wilson, I couldn’t find much information on, but I don’t think he was anything beyond an IRA auxiliary.
The relevance of two IRA men leaving death notices.
Hutchinson, in his memoir, tells this story about a friend of his who was not involved in any paramilitary organisation:
On the way home to the Mountainview area between the Woodvale and Crumlin roads, one of the guys who I was very friendly with … stopped off at a chippy in Ardoyne. As soon as he walked back out onto the Crumlin Road with his bag of chips, he was bundled into a car and taken to a house in the republican part of Ardoyne, where he was tortured for several hours. During a break in his interrogation, he managed to throw himself out of a window and make a bid for freedom. Luckily, some sympathetic locals discovered him, and he was rushed off to hospital, where he was eventually able to make a full recovery and speak to the police after a period of three weeks. The police asked him what he had been questioned about. ‘Hutchie. From Mackies. They wanted to know everything about him.’ After they had finished telling me this, the police advised me to leave Mackies immediately and to never come back. My mate’s dad offered to drive me back to Matchett Street, but the army said he needn’t bother, that they would leave me home. Always keen to make me feel uneasy, the soldiers drove me down Cupar Street, where they left me off on the Falls Road end.
The men Hutchinson murdered had a family home on Cupar Street. If Loughran and Morgan were indeed IRA members, would they have ventured to within yards of the Shankill Road, where Hutchinson says he observed them and murdered them?
And if the IRA had murdered the man mentioned in the quoted paragraph above, and Hutchinson left a death notice, would that have been justification for the killing? If having two death notices from paramilitaries was evidence of being a paramilitary, virtually every single man in Hutchinson’s Shankill Road community would be “legitimate targets” according to his own rationale.
The fact is that, at that time, many young men from close-knit communities were ending up in prison for paramilitary activities. They had networks of friends and relatives outside their organisations. That is natural and to be expected.
The Irish News Archive contains the Andersonstown News from 1972. There is not a single notice for Loughran or Morgan in it, though their murder is discussed. There is an article about Finbarr McKenna, from September 1974, alleging torture and abuse he and his family endured at the hands of the British army in September 1974, a few weeks before he had a notice placed for his friends.
I am left considering what the cousin of Loughran and Morgan said about there being “no death notices” – Hutchinson must surely have read what that man said about his actions, and still he said on a popular podcast that there were indeed death notices that proved his victims were “active republicans.”
I have not been able to find a single shred of evidence that either of the murdered men were anything other than labourers, with a Protestant father, who had the misfortune of either encountering Hutchinson on that day randomly, or someone, somewhere, claiming they were something that they were not.
I wonder if Billy Hutchinson would do his victim’s families the courtesy of saying where these damning death notices actually are?
⏩Brandon Sullivan is a middle-aged West Belfast émigré. He juggles fatherhood & marriage with working in a policy environment and writing for TPQ about the conflict, films, books, and politics.
Once again Brandon you do an excellently forensic job
ReplyDeleteI agree - Brandon's stuff is always thought provoking, often peeling away the myths we create to project our better side. I've talked to Billy a few times, been at talks and debates he has been involved in and quite like him. I enjoyed his book because I saw so much of myself in it, growing up in that world of local soccer and sectarianism while responding so often like he did. It would be great if he would tackle these matters head on but perhaps peace of mind is more important to him now than poking the cinders. Not that different from many of us I guess.
DeleteBrandon - you have brought some quality stuff to the blog. It takes it to a different level.
Thanks for your kind words, Barry and AM.
ReplyDelete@ AM - where would the IRA have placed death notices for volunteers in 1974? I'm assuming it was the Irish News, but can you think of any other publications?
The Irish News was always the place for death notices. An Phoblacht and Republican News would have reported on such deaths and provided eulogies but there was no 'death columns' as I recall. I think the Andytown News took it on much later.
ReplyDeleteBrandon is getting very very good at these pieces.
ReplyDeleteThe murders were not even featured in the Irish People, let alone any notices being left.
ReplyDeleteWhat's interesting to me is how Hutchinson has ended up in this intellectual cul-de-sac. His intelligence, if there actually was any, was clearly wrong. In his memoirs he said he didn't know how accurate it was. But he killed two men based on it anyway. And then, recently, he bluntly stated that there was evidence that the men were two active republicans.
I wonder if some subconscious defence mechanisms are at play? Does he actually believe the men he killed were "active republicans"? I find the psychology of the whole thing interesting.
Brandon,
Deleteor it could come down to this quote:
‘I justify everything I did in the Troubles. To stay sane, I have to’.
@ Christopher
ReplyDeleteI think you're right, and it does. The quote seems somewhat ambiguous to me, and notions of "truth" absent.
Billy Giles was different: in one documentary he talks about killing "an identified republican" whilst in another 8 or so years later he was opening about committing a sectarian murder and not caring about the political status of his victim.
Very penetrative bit of research. Good read.
ReplyDeleteI'd like to apologise to Brandon S. for not being very communicative in recent months or really contributing much to this scene anymore. I started a new job and it's really sucking the oxygen out of everything. Finding it very hard to find the time (and more acutely) mental/intellectual bandwith to dwell on Troubles related stuff.
Wishing everyone on TPQ a prosperous 2025
"The “strategy” from loyalist paramilitaries was “that if they killed enough Catholics then the Catholic community would in turn put pressure on the IRA to disband,” writes Hutchinson. “This was pure sectarianism, and it didn’t work ... at the time, however, I truly believed that if we pushed the Catholic community to the edge, they would go begging the IRA to stop their terror campaign."
ReplyDeleteSurprised Hutch just didn't come out and say what he did was flat out wrong, why keep digging when in a hole? He's already admitted it was pure sectarianism, not like this was the sole sectarian act in the conflict.
The Irish News has had the decade 1970 - 1979 digitised and loaded onto the Irish Newspaper Archive. For researchers, this is extremely good news.
ReplyDeleteA friend sent me a death notice from an Irish News in October 1975, which read as follows:
Loughran - Morgan - In proud and loving memory of brothers Michael and Eric, who were martyred for their faith on 21 October 1974. Mary, Queen of the Gael, pray for them. - From the Officers and Members of Clonard Martyers Sinn Fein.
So, we have a death notice from a republican group for the two men.
I'm interested in what Quillers make of this. I don't think either man was a militant republican, but perhaps the YCV intelligence operation was more sophisticated than I believed.
To be fair to Hutchinson, he has only ever claimed he "had information on them" and that the men "were republicans" - I think that this "In Memoriam" strongly suggests that they were republicans of some description.
However, no Clonard man that I talked to could recall anything about them, except that they were murdered.
I'm left feeling that it was probably a targeted operation, and that Michael and Eric probably had some support for the republican cause. I do no think that the killing of the two men will have upset, disrupted, or in any way negatively impacted the IRA's capacity to continue as they had been.
In military terms, the UVF lost two volunteers, one of whom was of huge value to his host organisation. Sinn Fein probably saw a lift in donations the week the men were murdered, and possibly an increase in passive support for the IRA. But I'm into the realms of supposition.
Your comments are always welcome.
Or, more than likely, it was an insertion from a community based group expressing their condolences on two local men being murdered. If they had been prominent republicans, you would have seen more insertions and stronger terminology.
DeleteLike Christopher, I don't think it has any significance in terms of possible affiliation. Given that SF were very much neighbours to those ordinary nationalists killed during the conflict, the local cumann would readily identify with the dead as members of the community rather than the party.
Delete@ Christopher, AM
ReplyDeleteI think I tend to agree with both of your analysis. But while I once believed that it was a crude random double murder, I do now think it was targeted, albeit based on "intelligence" that renders the noun an oxymoron.
It brings to mind a man the IRA killed because he was listed as "Inspector" in the phone book. He was an inspector, but not an RUC one, it was some other totally unrelated role.
I suppose the question is what evidence is there that they were 'targeted'? Loyalist strategy at the time was one of indiscriminate attacks on nationalists. Many were 'targeted' because they had a routine, allowing the attackers to plan both an attack and an escape. Is there anything other than the word of the people involved that the men in question were targeted because it was believed that they were republican activists? ?
Delete@ AM
ReplyDeleteThe short answer is no. I'm basing my (unemphatic) belief that it was a targeted double murder on the words of Hutchinson.