The Ludlow family's letter to Taoiseach Bertie Ahern.

Photographed here at extreme left is Margaret English, daughter of the late Hugh Watters (Dundalk Bombings Campaign); entering Ballymascanlan Hotel with members of the Ludlow family to hand in letters to the government ministers meeting there. The Ludlow family is represented by Mrs. Nan Sharkey, Mr. Kevin Ludlow and Mrs. Eileen Fox, with Brendan Larkin and Jimmy Sharkey (nephews of the late Seamus Ludlow).

An Taoiseach, Mr Bertie Ahern, TD

Ballymascanlan Hotel

13 May 2001

Dear Mr. Ahern,

The Ludlow family welcomes your visit to the Ballmascanlan Hotel, just three hundred metres from the spot where our deceased relative Seamus Ludlow was murdered in May 1976. We respectfully take this opportunity to once again prevail upon you to consider our call for an independent public inquiry into this matter. We also call upon you to meet with us at your earliest convenience so that we can discuss with you our reasons for demanding a public inquiry.

Members of the British Army’s Ulster Defence Regiment (UDR) and the outlawed murder gang Red Hand Commando cruelly murdered our relative near here twenty-five years ago on the night of 1^st and 2^nd May 1976. Ever since that day we the family of Seamus Ludlow have been denied justice and truth. Our deceased relative’s good name was tarnished while his sectarian killers remained free to kill again and again. The gardai, as we now know, have had a file on at least three of the named killers since at least 1979.

The Ludlow family demands explanations for the manner in which the gardai conducted the initial murder investigation: why the investigation was abandoned after only three weeks without our being informed; why the Ludlow family was excluded from Seamus Ludlow’s inquest on 19^th August 1976; why the gardai never went after the Loyalist/British Army killers, whose names were identified certainly by 1979. We want to know why these killers were protected from justice, and who issued instructions for the gardai to suspend the initial murder investigation and instead blacken the good name of the innocent victim of sectarian killers.

We the Ludlow family believe that there are many more questions arising from this shocking murder, just three hundred metres from the Ballymascanlan Hotel, that cause grave disquiet within the wider community. We believe that these questions can only be explored adequately in a public inquiry, similar in scope to the British Saville Inquiry into the Bloody Sunday massacre in Derry.

Furthermore, Mr. Ahern, we believe that our case for a public inquiry in this tragic matter is as valid and compelling as any that you personally have made for a number of cases of collusion in the Six Counties. We commend your calls for public inquiries into the Pat Finucane and Robert Hamill murders in the North and we implore you to adopt the same standard in the murder of our relative Seamus Ludlow on this side of the border.

We hope that you will give our requests for a public inquiry into the murder of Seamus Ludlow your most personal consideration and we respectfully await your consent for a meeting with us and our legal representatives as soon as possible.

Respectfully Yours

Mr. Kevin Ludlow

(Brother of the late Seamus Ludlow)

Mr. Jimmy Sharkey

(Nephew of the late Seamus Ludlow)

Mr. Michael Donegan

(Nephew of the late Seamus Ludlow)

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