Significant investigations by Northern Ireland’s legacy body into killings carried out during the Troubles are nearly ready to be made public, following the publication of its first report on Wednesday, the head of the body has said.
Set up in December 2023, the Independent Commission for Reconciliation and Information Recovery (ICRIR), headed by Northern Ireland’s former lord chief justice Declan Morgan, has been criticised for spending nearly €80 million to date.
Its first report examines the killing of Catholic solicitor Rory O’Kelly who was murdered by the IRA in a Coalisland, Co Tyrone pub in March 1977. He was targeted in its campaign against “British imperialism’s judiciary and administration”, it said.
Last year, Morgan and other colleagues were able to share interim findings on Rory O’Kelly’s death with his son Roger in a Birmingham hospice, just weeks before he died.
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The ICRIR found the Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) investigation into the killing of O’Kelly was effectively concluded after just four days, blamed on an absence of leads and pressures created by mounting IRA violence in Tyrone.
In addition, it traced RUC intelligence still stored by the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) showing that local IRA members had not wanted to attack O’Kelly, a local man, but who was then working for Northern Ireland’s Director of Public Prosecutions.
The gun used to shoot O’Kelly – by a young man who ordered a Bushmills whiskey and a stout in Lyttle’s public in Coalisland just minutes beforehand – was used again weeks later to kill a part-time Ulster Defence Regiment (UDR) soldier.
In a statement accompanying the publication of Wednesday’s report, Morgan said it represented a significant moment, after more than two years of investigations.
“A number of other late-stage investigations and draft reports are now developing. A further report is currently being checked by the Secretary of State, and several others are being readied for that process,” he said.
Roger O’Kelly’s sister, Anne, said she could not thank the ICRIR “enough for working so hard to piece together the facts”, especially “the three lovely people who came over to England to tell us what they had found; all done just in time”. Though just weeks away from death from pancreatic cancer, her 69-year-old brother had been “alert” and had learned much about their father’s death, having waged a campaign about the murder for years.
“I had no idea of what was in store for us when the two-hour meeting started. I soon became aware that something sacred and transformative was happening,” she said.
“Everyone present was transported 50 years back to the hour and place of our father’s death, had become a spectator of that momentous event. By the end, Roger and I had moved into a space of serenity and light, all anger taken away.”
Republishing an identikit image of the suspected killer that was published without a solid suspect being identified by the RUC in the days after the killing, the ICRIR urged anyone with information to make contact.
The ICRIR has provided “as many answers as possible”, said its chief investigator Peter Sheridan, but “there will be people who can still shed light on Rory O’Kelly’s murder” who should “use this moment” to come forward.
