The Store Bar shooting

The Store Bar shooting was a mass shooting that occurred on the 25 June 1976 in the late evening when an armed group of men calling themselves the Republican Action Force walked into The Store Bar (which was also known as Walkers Bar) on Lyle Hill Road in Templepatrick, County Antrim.

The Store Bar shootings
Part of the Troubles
The Store Bar
LocationLyle Hill Road, Templepatrick, County Antrim, Northern Ireland
Coordinates54°10′22″N 6°36′53″W
Date25 June 1976
19:00 GMT
Attack type
mass shooting
Weaponsassault rifle AR-15
Deaths3
Injured6
PerpetratorRepublican Action Force named themselves as the shooters

The Republican group said some words before spraying the pub with an AR-15 assault rifle killing three people and injuring about a half a dozen.[1] It was reported the gunmen left a bomb at the front of the pub but it failed to go off.[2] The three dead civilians Ruby Kidd (28), Francis Walker (17) (who was the son of owner) and Joseph McBride (56), were all Protestant civilians just like in other attacks claimed by the South Armagh Republican Action Force and Republican Action Force, like the Kingsmill massacre in January 1976 when 10 Protestant workers were gunned down,[3][4] and the Tullyvallen massacre in which 5 civilians died and 7 badly wounded.[5]

Background

It has been claimed that the Republican Action Force attack was in retaliation for the Ulster Volunteer Force's (UVF) attack on the Chlorane Bar less than three weeks earlier, which killed five people all civilians, three Catholics and two Protestants.[6]

Aftermath

The tit-for-tat sectarian attacks lasted most of the year between Loyalists & Republican paramilitaries. A week after the bar shooting the UVF carried out a gun attack on a Catholic owned pub the Ramble Inn, six people were killed in the attack five of them Protestants and just one Catholic which was considered a failure or "own goal" by the UVF gunmen as their targets were Catholics and wanted to avoid killing or injuring Protestants, this left the UVF in a bad standing with the Loyalist community over the deaths of so many Protestants killed by other Protestants and attacks claimed by the UVF or Protestant Action Force began to slowly stop.

On the 29 July an un-named Loyalist group shot dead three Catholic civilians in a pub called the Whitefort Inn in Andersonstown Road, Belfast.[7] Then just one day later the Republican Action Force killed four Protestant civilians who were shot dead in the Stag Inn pub in Belvoir, Belfast[8]

See also

References
  1. "CAIN: Chronology of the Conflict 1976". cain.ulst.ac.uk. Retrieved 16 December 2018.
  2. Image of newspaper article day after bombing
  3. Out Of The Ashes: An Oral History Of The Provisional Irish Republican Movement pp.139
  4. "Kingsmills families inquiry call". BBC News. 21 June 2011. Retrieved 16 December 2018.
  5. "CAIN: Sutton Index of Deaths". cain.ulst.ac.uk. Retrieved 16 December 2018.
  6. "CAIN: Chronology of the Conflict 1976". cain.ulst.ac.uk. Retrieved 16 December 2018.
  7. "CAIN: Chronology of the Conflict 1976". cain.ulst.ac.uk. Retrieved 16 December 2018.
  8. "CAIN: Sutton Index of Deaths". cain.ulst.ac.uk. Retrieved 16 December 2018.
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