Michael Wilson’s life changed in a moment in July 1990 when he stepped out of a Royal Ulster Constabulary armoured vehicle on Perry Street in Dungannon, Co Tyrone, to buy a couple of newspapers.
IRA gunmen parked across the street had waited in ambush and opened fire, hitting him in the back. Badly injured, Wilson staggered towards the newsagents. His colleague opened fire, injuring one of the gang, who was arrested quickly.
Ever since, Wilson has been in a wheelchair. Today he is a volunteer guide at the Police Service of Northern Ireland’s memorial to those who were killed in the uniform of the RUC and the PSNI.
Families of those killed come to the headquarters at Brooklyn on the Knock Road in east Belfast “on dates important to them, or just sometimes” because memory has been triggered, says Wilson.
“Sometimes a visit is sparked because a grandchild has raised it, or somebody wants to know more about their father. It’s very special to do those visits. Emotional, for sure, but it’s a very worthwhile,” he says.
Wilson is one of a number of retired RUC officers prepared to speak about their time in uniform and their work to remember fallen colleagues, whose names are inscribed on the memorials.
The RUC’s list of fallen begins on June 1st, 1922, and ends at November 3rd, 2001, when the RUC changed to the Police Service of Northern Ireland:
“There’s an urban myth that the RUC was disbanded,” says Ronnie Galwey, who was badly injured in an IRA shooting.
“That isn’t actually true. It’s a statement that people like to bandy about to cause hurt. They usually say the RUC was disbanded in disgrace. We never were.”
The past matters to these men. Three large vellum books list the dead, including the 319 officers who were killed during the Troubles, Northern Ireland’s three-decade conflict.
Each day a page is turned to reveal a different name.
On a slight incline, the stone panels are sparsely filled with names at the beginning of the Troubles, but become crowded as it worsened. The majority of those who killed them have never been prosecuted.
Each name prompts memories. For a few, it’s Sgt Jim Hazlett, who won the British Empire Medal after he was injured when he raced to save a man who had walked right up to a bomb that explosive experts were trying to defuse.
Photographs taken show Hazlett catching the civilian and pushing him out of the way seconds before the bomb exploded. “The wee man got away without a scratch. Jim wasn’t so lucky,” says Galwey. “Jim always joked later that he had tripped.”
In April 1986, Hazlett was shot outside his home by gunmen hiding across the road in Newcastle, Co Down, after he returned from walking the dog. One of the gunmen then shot him in the head as he lay wounded.
“The one thing Jim Hazlett didn’t do on the day of the bomb was ask if that wee man was a Catholic or a Protestant,” says Galwey. “He just saw it was somebody who needed help and he went to help. That’s what police did. Rant over.”
The same family names feature again and again on the lists, highlighting the connections between some families and the force. They include one of the men gathered at the memorial, Michael Forbes, whose father and grandfather served.
His grandfather, Thomas – a Cavan-born father of 10, based in Dungannon, Co Tyrone – was the fourth RUC officer to die when he was shot in 1942 after the IRA fired at a commemoration.
He chased after them through a house. One of them turned and shot him. He died a week later. Six of the IRA were captured and sentenced to death, including Joe Cahill, later the IRA’s chief of staff. The man who had fired the gun fled south.
“My father told me that the gunman’s father, who was a painter and decorator, he came every year to paint their home, as a form of recompense. That’s the best that man could do. He made a gesture of some sort to try and make things right, the best he could,” says Forbes, looking at his grandfather’s name on the memorial.
I used to go everywhere, even in the really hard republican areas. Where there’s money [involved], politics goes out the window
— Roy Black, who spent 13 years as a fraud investigator
Not everything about the RUC was about the IRA. Former Det Constable Roy Black spent 13 years as a fraud investigator, having spent years in Lisburn, west Belfast and Castlereagh.
“I’m not sure that the wider world is particularly interested in the RUC any more, but we were always painted as a one-trick pony. We were anti-IRA, anti-terrorist. But we were so, so much more. I spent half my career with absolutely nothing to do with the IRA, investigating commercial fraud. And, believe me, I had plenty of work,” says Black, who co-operated closely with An Garda Síochána’s Fraud Squad.
The Garda unit was then headed by Fachtna Murphy, who later became Garda commissioner.
“A lovely man; if you ever see him, tell him one of his old mates was asking after him,” says Black.
“I used to go everywhere, even in the really hard republican areas. Where there’s money, politics goes out the window. If you’ve lost money, you want the guy to get your money back. You don’t care about his politics.”
Former Ireland rugby international, Jimmy McCoy, who served from 1977 to 2007, was stationed in Dungannon until intelligence was received that the IRA was planning to kill him. He was moved within hours.
So, he was a target even though he represented Ireland?
“Oh, more so,” says McCoy, matter of factly, “more so, because Dungannon was a hotbed then.” On duty, he was occasionally told he “had been shite last Saturday”.
Today, he believes most young people in Northern Ireland know little about the Troubles. His own children knew he had served, but they learned only recently that he had been an IRA target.
The efforts to remember the RUC’s fallen are honourable and necessary, he says. “We feel proud that we were there. We were there to do a job, and I think we did it very well.”
I am deeply perturbed that the heroism of all of these guys, and my father, is being besmirched and now this magic word ‘collusion’ means that everybody’s guilty
— Rev David Clements
Time moves on. “I think that’s just the way of the world. Look back to the first World War, or second World War: it’s sad to see the numbers just dwindling, but that’s the way it is.”
On legacy, the group have strong opinions. Nobody should get immunity, including “any bad apples” in the RUC, though they do not accept that that number was large, or that they represented the rest.
Methodist minister David Clements’s father, William, was shot at Ballygawley RUC station in December 1985 by IRA men. After wounding him, they walked up to him and shot in him in the head.
His gun was stolen and later found with one of the eight IRA men who were killed at Loughgall, Co Tyrone, in May 1987 when they were ambushed by British SAS soldiers during an attack on the village’s RUC station.
Clements does not support amnesties, though he understands how difficult it is to get cases to court decades after killings.
“People are being fed this idea that they’re going to get justice,” he says. “They’re not. After 50 years you’re not. If you haven’t got it by now, you’re not going to get it. Evidence doesn’t last 50 years. Memories don’t last 50 years. You can’t bring a rabbit out of the hat and say: ‘I’m going to convict this guy.’”
Clements, a board member for 25 years of the WAVE centre in Belfast, which helps people who lost loved ones during the Troubles, accepts that there was collusion by some RUC officers, but only by “a limited number”.
“I am deeply perturbed that the story is being told in a lopsided way and that the heroism of all of these guys, and my father, is being besmirched and now this magic word ‘collusion’ means that everybody’s guilty,” he says.
It was very important to me to come back. I wanted to come back, I wouldn’t let the terrorists beat me
— Michael Wilson
The Independent Commission for Reconciliation and Information Recovery (ICRIR) – much criticised by Sinn Féin and by campaigners – should be given a chance since it “could restore some balance by giving an honest assessment of what’s possible”, he says.
Policing Board member Michael Atkinson, who is a trustee of the RUC’s George Cross Foundation, says an audio archive is being gathered that already has 300 contributions from former officers.
“It’s not publicly available,” he says. Within 18 months, however, it is hoped that it will be available, perhaps with up to 60 video contributions: “There are plenty of stories to be told, no doubt about that.” By now, the coffees have long gone cold and one of the men anticipates a question that was about to be asked.
“Why don’t you ask us if we’d do it again?”
Michael Wilson, who joined the RUC in 1983 and retired in 2015, speaks: “I’d do it again. In a heartbeat. It wouldn’t cost me a thought.”
Following 18 months in hospital, Wilson returned to duty. “It was very important to me to come back. I wanted to come back, I wouldn’t let the terrorists beat me,” he says.
But would he still do it again, even knowing the outcome?
“Yes, I thought it was a brilliant job. I loved it. I’d do it again. I accepted the risks. I got shot, yep. But it was worth doing.
“It was a job that was worth doing. Would do it again, absolutely.”
