LEGAL action is to be initiated against former Stormont minister and MP John Taylor over comments made online about the McGurk's Bar massacre.

Mr Taylor, who is also known as Lord Kilclooney, provoked anger this week after he appeared to question the innocence of 15 Catholics killed in the massacre on X, formerly Twitter. Fifteen people, including two children, were killed when the UVF detonated a bomb in the North Queen Street bar in North Belfast, in December 1971.

Mr Taylor, who was a Stormont minister at the time of the atrocity, wrongly said that it was an IRA bomb that had exploded prematurely.

Responding to an X account that referenced the "innocent people murdered in McGurk’s", Mr Taylor responded: “You claim they were innocent.”

Another post by the same account again referenced the “innocents of the McGurk’s atrocity” to which Mr Taylor replied “you clearly do not understand the word ‘innocent."

Ciarán MacAirt, whose grandmother Kitty Irvine was one of those killed, hit out at John Taylor's comments.

He added: "Before we had buried our loved ones, the British state buried the truth about the McGurk's Bar Massacre."

Solicitor Kevin Winters, of KRW Law said action will now be taken against Mr Taylor.

“We can confirm we are preparing pre-action legal correspondence alleging harassment by Mr Taylor over certain online posting remarks made by him,” he said. “We expect to be in a position to issue formal court proceedings in the next few weeks.

“Central to the case is the insinuation that the deceased were somehow not innocent of the atrocity. A Police Ombudsman report 'dismissed any unsubstantiated niggling doubts about this'.

“Our clients have been retraumatised by repeat allegations made and have been left with little alternative but to resort to litigation."