EVERYONE of my generation remembers the Shankill Butchers, but their victims are forgotten.
The Shankill Butchers murdered at will and they should never have been released from prison for the horrific crimes that they committed in both communities.
The families of their victims were left to deal with the trauma with no support whatsoever from any agencies.
All sorts of books have been written about that period in our history, while social media is full of videos from around that time – all in an attempt to benefit from the suffering of the families and in a lot of cases without the proper facts.
The victims of the Shankill Butchers are the forgotten dead of the Troubles because the families struggle to deal with what happened to their loved ones. The truth is lost when no-one speaks for the victims.
My uncle Con Neeson was a volunteer bingo caller at St Kevin’s Hall at the junction of Donegall Street and North Queen Street. On Sunday August 1, 1976, the bingo session was for old age pensioners from both sides of the community. It was a warm summer evening so when the bingo ended Con decided to walk home even though the parish priest had asked him to wait for a taxi.
He walked along North Queen Street, then cut through the Barrack Wall area to get to the Cliftonville Road. As he walked up the Cliftonville Road he was just minutes away from his home in Clifton Crescent.
At the corner of Manor Street three men stepped out of the shadows. Con was attacked by the ringleaders of the Shankill Butchers – Sam McAllister, Robert ‘Basher’ Bates and William Moore. Con died from his injuries in the early hours of the August 2 in the Mater Hospital.
On August 4 the wider Neeson family gathered outside his home in Clifton Crescent for the journey to St Patrick’s Chapel on Donegall Street for his funeral Mass. After Mass the cortege made its way across Millfield, but only male mourners followed behind it.
At Peter’s Hill at the bottom of the Shankill Road a crowd of men, women and even children had gathered. My father and his brother Davy moved all the grown men to the outside of the cortege to keep younger men in line.
As we passed Peter’s Hill the crowd shouted all sorts of sectarian hatred towards us. My father and uncle Davy kept the cortege moving to avoid any trouble.
When we turned onto Divis Street the women who could not be part of the cortege across Millfield joined us for Con’s final journey to Milltown Cemetery.
Sunday August 2 2026 is Con’s 50th anniversary. An event is being organised at his grave at the bottom of Milltown Cemetery to remember him.
I would like to invite the extended Neeson family and friends to join us to celebrate Con’s life. Assemble at 1pm at his graveside.
