Peter Gallagher

Peter Gallagher 44 years, Toomebridge, Co. Antrim, shot dead by UDA/UFF as he arrived at his work in Belfast on 24 March 1993. 

Mr Gallagher, a married man with six children, worked in a construction yard for the Housing Executive at a site off the Grosvenor Road in west Belfast. He drove each morning from his home in Toomebridge to his work in Belfast, a distance of over twenty-five miles, arriving in work around 8am. His usually opened the yard every morning to load up dumper trucks, which were stored there overnight for the building site in Distillery Street. He had only parked his van and was getting out of it when a lone gunman fired through a security fence from a concealed position amongst bushes only yards from the busy Westlink motorway. Mr Gallagher was hit at least ten times in the head and body and died instantly. The gunman escaped on a mountain bike that was found later in undergrowth only about 100 yards from the scene of the shooting. The pistol used by the killer was also recovered. 

The weapon used in the killing was a Browning 9mm pistol, and was part of the huge haul of weaponry imported into the North of Ireland from South Africa in 1987 by unionist/loyalist paramilitaries, with the full knowledge and the assistance of various British intelligence forces. 

The killing scene was only a few hundred yards from the Grosvenor Road RUC barrack, where a permanent road checkpoint was in position on the road outside at the time of the shooting. There were also several CCTV cameras, which monitored the area from the top of lampposts at traffic roundabout less than thirty yards from the scene. However, despite the close proximity of the RUC barracks and personnel to the murder scene it was reported that an ambulance from the nearby Royal Victoria Hospital was actually leaving the scene with Mr Gallagher’s body when the RUC and British army were arriving. 

Sinn Fein said Mr Gallagher was a member of their party, and said the murder was a result of an ongoing campaign waged by British and unionist politicians, assisted by various sections of the media, to marginalise and demonise their Party.’ 

Criticism of the RUC also came from the local SDLP, who questioned why there was such ‘slack’ security so close one of their barracks, and why it took them so long to respond. 

An RUC superintendent rejecting the comments said ‘the murder took place well away from the line of sight in the base, and none of the officers manning the checkpoint reported hearing any shots.’ 

An inquest into Mr Gallagher’s killing was held in September 1994. An RUC officer told the hearing he believed the killing was a random sectarian murder, and that he suspected the UFF statement claiming the killing and naming the victim as a Sinn Fein member was made after the these facts became known in the media. The coroner, accepting the RUC officer’s opinion, said the victim had only minor role in assisting Sinn Fein and was satisfied the killing was ‘nothing higher than a sectarian motive.’ The opinion that the killing was purely random however was undermined by forensic evidence on the history of the Browning pistol used in the murder. It was revealed that the same gun had been used less than 24 hours before Mr Gallagher’s murder in the attempt murder of another Sinn Fein member, Councillor Gerard McGuigan, at his north Belfast home. 

No one has been charged in connection with the killing of Peter Gallagher.