A RETELLING of the horrific murder of a trainee teacher, who was shot dead and his body desecrated, will take place this Sunday.
Patrick Magee (20) and Frank McGuinness (20) were shot by members of the Royal Anglian Regiment on 17 April, 1972. Making their way towards the Falls Road they had run for cover to St Comgall's School after shooting broke out around them on Divis Street.
Patrick died immediately from a single gunshot, while Frank was critically wounded.
Gerry Magee, Patrick's brother, told how the British army fired over 100 shots from a post on Percy Street "peppering" the St Comgall's School building, where the men were hit.
Two ambulances that were called for the pair were commandeered by the British Army's Parachute Regiment, forcing the drivers to bring them into the Shankill area.
A crowd mobbed the ambulance carrying the seriously wounded Frank and tried to overturn it. When an ambulance carrying Patrick's body arrived the crowd opened its doors and dragged his remains into the street.
The images were broadcast on the news that evening.
"We were at home that night and at about 6 o'clock my ma took this notion that we were going to say the Rosary, so we didn't see the news," Gerry recalled.
"At about 8 o'clock that night I was out with my mates and a friend of the family came round and said I needed to go home. I went back to the house and it was just a scene of devastation. It was surreal. All my sisters were there, and everybody was crying. It was surreal because you were there, but it was as if you weren't part of it."
The British Army claimed it had shot two gunmen, but were forced to admit in 1977 that both men – who were training to be teachers at St Joseph's College – were innocent.
"It was very hard on my father in particular," Gerry said.
"They didn't only kill Patrick that day, they also killed my da. His eldest son was shot dead. He took out a civil case against them, which he won. The Brits would only agree that they (Patrick and Frank) were innocent, but my father's barristers accepted there was crossfire at the time, which there wasn't. That was their get-out, but there was no shooting from the school at the time."
A retelling of the story, hosted by the Pat Finucance Centre and Kaboosh Theatre Group, will take place on Percy Street this Sunday at 12pm.
Gerry said that Patrick's murder and the desecration of his remains "cast a very long shadow".
Gerry described the shootings as "horrendous". Of the British Army's treatment of Frank, he said it was hoped a delay in treatment would see him "bleed to death".
"There should have been prosecutions – it was blatant," he stated.
Patrick's death has never been properly investigated and nobody has been prosecuted for the shootings.
"It was a whitewash," Gerry said.
The Historical Enquiries Team charged with investigating the case had spoken to a soldier who said he had "shot a gunman", Gerry recalled. He said the man was not investigated under caution, nor the admission pursued.
Two days before the shooting, Official IRA leader Joe McCann had been shot dead in the Markets area. On April 16th, the organisation killed Lieutenant Nicholas Hull of the Royal Anglian Regiment in response.
In later years, Gerry said, a soldier had come forward and said that the Regiment was "out to get revenge" on the day the Patrick and Frank were shot.
