Shooting of Gunner Curtis
Reid is reported to have shot dead Gunner Robert Curtis of the British Army in New Lodge, Belfast on 6 February 1971; Curtis was the first on-duty British soldier to be killed in Ireland since the 1920s.
Gunner Curtis' shooting is seen as the beginning of the all-out war between the Provisional Irish Republican Army and British forces. The day after the shooting of Curtis, the Unionist Prime Minister, Major James Chichester-Clark stated that "Northern Ireland was at war with the Irish Republican Army Provisionals". The following week, following clashes at an IRA funeral in north Belfast, the Stormont government, which at that time was responsible for security in Northern Ireland banned the wearing of military style uniforms by "subversive organisations".
Read more about this topic: Billy Reid (Irish Republican)
Famous quotes containing the words shooting of and/or shooting:
“... though it is by no means requisite that the American women should emulate the men in the pursuit of the whale, the felling of the forest, or the shooting of wild turkeys, they might, with advantage, be taught in early youth to excel in the race, to hit a mark, to swim, and in short to use every exercise which could impart vigor to their frames and independence to their minds.”
—Frances Wright (1795–1852)
“I’ll tell you one thing. If a little green man pops out at me I’m shooting first and asking questions later.”
—Edward D. Wood, Jr. (1922–1978)