UP to 200 people attended a commemoration this afternoon to mark the 30th anniversary of three people murdered by an off-duty RUC officer at Sinn Féin's Falls Road offices.
Pat McBride (40), Paddy Loughran (61) Michael O’Dwyer (24) were gunned down inside the party's offices on 4 February, 1992.
NEVER FORGOTTEN: Wreaths laid in memory of the three victims today
Constable Allen Moore, who carried out the shootings, then drove to the shores of Lough Neagh, where he took his own life.
The previous day, Moore was disarmed by RUC members and his personal protection weapon confiscated after he fired shots over a colleague's grave in Comber.
Pat Wilson and Nora Larkin, who were injured in the Sinn Féin offices shooting, would later claim that the RUC had acted negligently in failing to detain and disarm Moore, who did not have his psychiatric and physical condition assessed before the attack.
REMEMBERED: A plaque in memory of Pat McBride (40), Paddy Loughran (61) and Michael O’Dwyer (24)
This afternoon, the Falls Commemoration Committee remembered those who were murdered.
Addressing those gathered at the Sevastopol Street office, former Sinn Féin President Gerry Adams described the "pandemonium" in the wake of the shootings.
"The RUC were here, they were trying to close the building, local people were assaulted and Sinn Féin Councillor Seán McKnight was grabbed by the throat as he attempted to clear the way for the ambulance crew," he said.
"The RUC were demanding that the office be closed, but those who worked in the building resisted, the building remained open."
He told how a bag used by Moore to carry the shotgun used in the shootings was found some time later, filled with shotgun cartridges.
Mr Adams said the attack was a consequence of a "protracted campaign of vilification" against Sinn Féin "by the British, by the political establishment here and in Dublin, and by elements of the media".
The former West Belfast MP read tabloid newspaper headlines which described the victims as IRA members while branding the man who murdered them an "avenger".
"Of course, the reality was different," he stated.
He reflected on the republican activism of Sinn Féin members Pat McBride and Paddy Loughran, and described Michael O'Dwyer as a "family man" who had come to the Sinn Féin office to seek advice from a support worker.
"I'm conscious also of the family of Allen Moore and of all the dead and wounded of our long war," he continued. "Thankfully the war is now over, although some are continuing it via other means.
"We can make no sense of any of this except in the context of British government involvement in Ireland, and the conquest as well as the malign influence and the shameful methods the British have used, and continue to use, to maintain the union.
"Yesterday's developments at Stormont are part of all of this.
"The end of British rule in Ireland cannot come soon enough.The Good Friday Agreement has an agreed process to do this and that's what the people want.
"What happened here 30 years ago was a brutal attempt but futile attempt to impose a corrupt system and to destroy Sinn Féin. It failed completely to do that, but at a terrible price for the Loughran, McBride and O'Dwyer families."
