Attack On The Heights Bar
On the evening of 18 June 1994, about 24 people were gathered in The Heights Bar watching the Republic of Ireland v Italy World Cup football match.
At 10:10pm, two UVF members wearing boiler suits and balaclavas, and armed with assault rifles walked into the pub and opened fire on the crowd. Six men were killed outright, and five other people were wounded. Witnesses said the gunmen then ran to a getaway car, "laughing". The dead were Adrian Rogan (34), Malcolm Jenkinson (52), Barney Greene (87), Daniel McCreanor (59), Patrick O'Hare (35) and Eamon Byrne (39), all Catholic civilians. O'Hare was the brother-in-law of Eamon Byrne and Greene was one of the oldest people to be killed during "the Troubles".
The getaway car was found abandoned between Crossgar and Ballynahinch, while one of the rifles used was later recovered in Saintfield. The UVF claimed responsibility for the attack. Journalist Peter Taylor suggested in his book Loyalists that it was not entirely certain that the UVF Brigade Staff (Belfast leadership) had sanctioned the attack, and that it was instead carried out by a local UVF unit. In the event of an "enemy" attack, these UVF units were granted autonomy to retaliate against what they considered to be appropriate targets. Taylor had been told by an unnamed UVF member that the UVF had received faulty intelligence which had claimed Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA) volunteers would be present in the Heights Bar that evening. The Brigade Staff later assured Progressive Unionist Party (PUP) leader David Ervine that there would never again be another attack such as Loughinisland.
Read more about this topic: Loughinisland Massacre
Famous quotes containing the words attack on the, attack, heights and/or bar:
“Lesbian existence comprises both the breaking of a taboo and the rejection of a compulsory way of life. It is also a direct or indirect attack on the male right of access to women.”
—Adrienne Rich (b. 1929)
“Philosophy can be compared to some powders that are so corrosive that, after they have eaten away the infected flesh of a wound, they then devour the living flesh, rot the bones, and penetrate to the very marrow. Philosophy at first refutes errors. But if it is not stopped at this point, it goes on to attack truths. And when it is left on its own, it goes so far that it no longer knows where it is and can find no stopping place.”
—Pierre Bayle (1647–1706)
“This monument, so imposing and tasteful, fittingly typifies the grand and symmetrical character of him in whose honor it has been builded. His was “the arduous greatness of things done.” No friendly hands constructed and placed for his ambition a ladder upon which he might climb. His own brave hands framed and nailed the cleats upon which he climbed to the heights of public usefulness and fame.”
—Benjamin Harrison (1833–1901)
“The bar is the male kingdom. For centuries it was the bastion of male privilege, the gathering place for men away from their women, a place where men could go to freely indulge in The Bull Session ... the release of the guilty anxiety of the oppressor class.”
—Shulamith Firestone (b. 1945)