O’Dowd family still searching for answers 50 years after murders and Embargo to 2056 We Need Justice

‘The pain that’s left behind was unimaginable – it still is’

Report Paul Murphy
This weekend 100 members of the O’Dowd family and friends will gather at the chapel in Clare cemetery, Waringstown, Co Down for a special Mass in remembrance of three relatives who had been murdered in Co Down at the height of the Troubles 50 years ago. Two O’Dowd brothers from Ballydougan and their uncle were among six civilians who lost their lives in two separate murderous attacks within a short time of each other on a Sunday afternoon.

Pictured above: The late Barney O’Dowd with his children, Eleanor, Louglin, Noel and Cathal on the occasion of his 100th

THE TRAGEDY UNFOLDED 50 YEARS AGO

Around teatime on 4 th January three masked men burst into the home of the O’Dowd family at Ballydougan where 16 people were having a family reunion. Children were playing the piano for male members of the group in the sitting room when gunmen burst in and opened fire killing Joseph O’Dowd (61) and his nephews Barry (24) and Declan O’Dowd (19). The father of the two younger men, Barney O’Dowd was seriously wounded. Because a long laneway leading to the house was very narrow the gunmen crossed fields to get to the house. Shortly beforehand the home of the Reavey family at Whitecross was entered by gunmen who then murdered brothers John (24) and Brian (22) and left another brother Anthony (17) seriously wounded. There was evidence in the O’Dowd murders that a UDR patrol had been seen in a field beside the house on the day before the shootings.

WE MOVED TO MEATH

Eight months after the shooting the O’Dowd family made the painful decision to uproot themselves from the area, leaving behind employment, careers, neighbours and a wide circle of friends to settle in Co Meath. It is not something they wanted to do and moving away was a terrible wrench but they no longer felt safe in Ballydougan and feared the gunmen would return and finish off the remaining members of the family.

As the family members prepare to gather for the remembrance ceremony – first at the Clare cemetery and later at the Canal Court Hotel in Newry – Noel O’Dowd, a survivor of the 1976 massacre – spoke to Meath Live about the aftermath of the massacre and how the family is still searching for justice for their loved ones whose lives were taken so brutally. The surviving members of the family are Mary (Adams), Noel, Loughlin, Ronan, Eleanor (O’Sullivan), Cathal. As he prepared to head North for the remembrance Noel, who lives in Navan, told of his feelings about that awful days 50 years ago when he lost those precious members of his family. “It’s very emotional. What did it achieve? The tragedy of it, how it affected my parents. My mother was totally traumatised.

It led to the decision by the family that we would actually leave the North and seek refuge, to get away from all that vitriol. The upheaval of it, to come to a different part of the country and start it all over again. In my case, I was 22 and four and a half years into my career in the civil service. I had to leave and seek work elsewhere. Ultimately, it turned out to be a good thing for me because people don’t seem to realise there is no money in the civil service! I left all my friends and career behind me and had to start again. For the first couple of years I felt very much a refugee and we still had no home to go to”.

He and his family still saw Ballydougan as their home. All the friends they had known were remote from them and they had to make new friends, which was very difficult. “That moment of madness, whoever pulled the trigger, condemned us to a life that would never be the same again – and never will be”.

DAD BADLY INJURED ASKED FOR ME 

Noel has stark memories of that fateful night in Ballydougan. “I remember before the ambulances arrived, my father (who was badly injured) asked for me. I knelt down beside him – he was on blankets on the floor – and he thought he was dying and he said to me ‘I won’t be back’ and I said ‘of course you will’ . And he said ‘promise me that when this is all over bring your mammy and them (meaning the rest of the family) to the Free State as it was called at the time. And I said ‘you can do it’. I think it’s a tribute to him that in the starkest moment when he thought that he would never see the place again that he knew that this was something that had to be done. Ultimately, that decision was taken and we moved in August 1976. I thought we would be staying for a year and maybe come back again but the sense of peace in the South was so welcome that any sentiment towards the home place disappeared”.

WE WANT JUSTICE 

In all of the trauma suffered by the family in 1976 and further along, there is a prospect that justice may never be done. No one has been apprehended for the murders, there is the overarching sense that there was Northern and British security force collusion in the murders. “This seems to me, in the words of Lord Denning ‘an appalling vista’ , that the British government doesn’t want to admit this. They have settled other cases like the Miami Showband but there is no admission of liability.

EMBARGO BY UK GOVERMENT TO 2056

There has been no acknowledgement. This is the dirty tricks brigade. They used loyalists paramilitaries to do their dirty work for them. Eugene Reavey found out through his research that there was an embargo on our (O’Dowd) killings, that there will be nothing released until 84 years after the killings. That brings us up to 2056 – that’s not much good for the likes of us”.

“Nothing was achieved only misery and heartbreak. Three lives were lost. Uncle Joe was only 61 – we thought that we was an old man at this stage but he would have lived for another 30 years. My brothers should be alive today, married and with grandchildren and be able to have a life instead of being murdered.

CUT DOWN LIKE DOGS

On the day of the funerals I always remember the priest Fr Lynch saying that they were ‘cut down like dogs’ and that’s exactly what they were. In my case I got the lucky escape. My mother’s decision to send me to Mass. The reason I hadn’t been was that I was at a dance the night before. The price I had to pay, to go to Mass? Three times she asked me to go and on the third time I decided to go for peace sake. That decision ultimately saved my life”.

He said at one stage he would gladly have swapped places with his deceased brothers because of the “unimaginable” pain that was left behind. And that pain still remains. “The one thing I would like to say is that 50 years on the pain hasn’t eased. I think it’s got worse because we now know the scale of what has been lost is greater.”