Peter McGuinness

Peter McGuinness 41 years, Bawnmore, Shore Road, north Belfast, struck by a plastic bullet fired by a member of the Royal Ulster Constabulary on 9 August 1981. He died minutes later in the living room of his home.

Mr McGuinness was married with five children. He was unemployed at the time of his death, but regularly helped out in a local community centre near his home. He was a highly respected man in the community and through his work in the community centre knew most of the young people in the area. 

The McGuinness family lived on the Shore Road at the end of a row of old terraced houses, elevated some four or five feet above the main road. The houses looked out over a new urban motorway, and beyond to the wide expanse of Belfast Lough. Behind the McGuinness home was the Bawnmore estate, a small nationalist working-class enclave, whose community for years suffered the violence, discrimination, and neglect that was the lot of such communities in the North of Ireland.

On the evening before Peter McGuinness was fatally wounded preparations had been going on in the Bawnmore area to commemorate the introduction of internment on 9 August 1971. Although internment was phased out in December 1975 in many nationalist areas they continued to commemorate the event, which included lighting bonfires late on the evening of August 8, and banging dustbin lids in the early hours of August 9. Throughout the 1970s and early 1980s ‘internment night,’ as it became known, usually led to clashes between nationalist youths, the British military and the RUC.

When Mr McGuinness left his home on the evening of August 8 he went to the near-by Hillview Social Club, a community centre beside a little side street called Dandy Street. When he left the club, sometime before midnight that evening, he went home. Later, after trouble broke out between local youths around the bonfire he went out and tried to persuade some of the youths involved to go home. The situation quietened down for a short time until some of the youths began throwing stones and petrol bombs at RUC vehicles on the Shore Road. Mr McGuinness again went out to talk to the youths. At one point while he was talking to the youths an RUC vehicle arrived on the scene and the youths threw stones and petrol bombs at it. As Mr McGuinness and others fled the confrontation a plastic bullet, fired by a member of the RUC from inside an armoured vehicle, struck him on the chest in the garden of his home. He ran into his home and collapsed and died moments later. 

Relatives and neighbours were adamant he was not involved in rioting but helping to defuse a dangerous situation. The RUC they said had shot dead an innocent man.

Mr McGuinness’s wife, Isobel, interviewed in a publication released some years ago by the United Campaign Against Plastic Bullets described the events leading up to the death of her husband Peter: ‘It was Saturday night, just going into the 9 August. A bonfire had been lit behind our houses at Bawnmore. People were standing around. My eldest wee girl and me were up at it. A row, not so much a fight, developed between two factions, the Sticks’ and ‘Provies’. Peter was not there. He had been in the Hillview Social Club at the corner of Dandy Street and afterwards had gone home. When the row developed we came home.’

We came through the little entry beside the club and into our house, No. 24, the first house in the row. Peter was in the house. This was between 12.45 a.m. and 1.00 a.m. I made tea when he came down. Then the fighting developed and a crowd had come down the Shore Road. They moved up towards our front door. They started throwing petrol bombs, a good number. But it wasn’t the factions were fighting at this time - just young fellas, drunk and all, that were throwing petrol bombs at the black taxis going down the road, the UDA taxis that serve Rathcoole.

Then it developed into faction fighting, unbeknown to me, anyhow it seemed there was another row, fighting among each other. Peter had gone out a number of times - young fellas with sticks and bricks, fellas around 18, 19, 20. Peter knew them all. He got it quietened again and had come into the house.

Then it started up again. There is a big tree in the hedge at the right hand side in our garden. Next thing a petrol bomb landed in our front garden. I was afraid of the tree going up and then the roofs of these old houses catching.

Bernard Girvan, Barney Cash, Peter and I were out then talking to them. We were standing at the back emergency doors of the club. Next thing there was a shout - ‘the cops are coming!’ An RUC jeep pulled up. Bernard Girvan said - ‘Let’s get of out of here. A petrol bomb landed on the top of the jeep. Bernard had me by the arm. I was just up at the front door when the petrol bomb landed on the jeep, just at the door of the hall. Then I heard the bang. I thought Peter was coming behind me. I turned round to see if Peter was coming. He was just coming round the corner with Barney Cash, behind me. He just ran up to me and said - ‘Bel, I have been hit’. He just ran past me and collapsed on the floor of the front room. There was a bloodstain on his chest. We phoned for the ambulance. The ambulance came and the ambulance man worked on him for ten to fifteen minutes, and that was it. That was about twenty minutes or a quarter to two. He lay there until 4am when a police doctor came and pronounced him dead. We had got the priest first, Father Donaldson, the new curate, my own cousin. About 3 a.m. two RUC detectives came and took a statement and I told them what had happened.

On 15 August I gave a second statement to two detectives in Greencastle RUC Station who were doing an investigation. Bernard Girvan and Barney Cash also gave statements and later signed them after consulting their solicitor.

In November 1981 the Department of Public Prosecutions declared there would be no prosecution. An RUC Inspector came out to tell me. I wasn’t pleased.

I learned from my solicitor that there was an allegation of intoxication. Peter had only a few drinks that Saturday night but on the Friday night he had taken more drink and I had to take him home. That was unusual for Peter, he had met a friend who had been hospital and they had taken drink together. But on the Saturday night he had only a few drinks. Somebody explained to me that the drink might still have been in his system.’ 

Mrs McGuinness said she heard no further word from the RUC until she got notice about the inquest, which was held on 27 October 1982. The RUC members involved did not attend the hearing, their statements being read out by a representative. The evidence revealed at the hearing confirmed that Mr McGuinness was not involved in the rioting when he was shot.

No RUC members were ever charged in connection with the killing of Peter McGuinness.