Death
Eamon Collins was murdered on 27 January 1999 while walking his dogs near Barcroft Park, his home in Newry. He was stabbed and beaten so badly that police initially thought he had been hit by a car. It is presumed that he was killed by the IRA in revenge for public testimony on the activities of the organisation and in particular for his court testimony against Thomas Murphy.
The IRA denied involvement in the killing and Sinn Féin's local representative Brendan Curran denied the IRA was responsible and said that the killing was "senseless and needless". Gerry Adams said that the killing was "regrettable" but added that Mr Collins had "many enemies in many, many, many places".
Read more about this topic: Eamon Collins
Famous quotes containing the word death:
“If it be aught toward the general good,
Set honor in one eye, and death i’th’ other,
And I will look on both indifferently;
For let the gods so speed me as I love
The name of honor more than I fear death.”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)
“Life springs from death and from the graves of patriot men and women spring living nations.... They think that they have pacified Ireland. They think that they have purchased half of us and intimidated the other half. They think that they have foreseen everything, think they have provided against everything; but the fools, the fools, the fools, they have left us our Fenian dead, and while Ireland holds these graves Ireland unfree shall never be at peace.”
—Patrick Henry Pearse (1879–1916)
“We often see malefactors, when they are led to execution, put on resolution and a contempt of death which, in truth, is nothing else but fearing to look it in the face—so that this pretended bravery may very truly be said to do the same good office to their mind that the blindfold does to their eyes.”
—François, Duc De La Rochefoucauld (1613–1680)