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Ludlow Family Account 1998.
On
this page we reproduce journalist Ed Moloney's 15 March 1998 report from the Sunday
Tribune in which he featured the Ludlow family's account of the cover-up
that followed the murder of this was the follow-up to the previous week's report
in which Ed Moloney interviewed north Down Loyalist Paul
Hosking.
The murder of Seamus Ludlow
Sunday Tribune, 15-3-98
by Ed Moloney
Gardai cover-up
Evidence
is emerging showing that Garda Special Branch detectives in Dublin and Dundalk
may have helped to cover up the 1976 murder of Co Louth man Seamus Ludlow, the
Sunday Tribune has established.
According to
members of his family a senior Garda detective has admitted privately that the
Special Branch was aware within weeks of Seamus Ludlow's death twenty-two years
ago of the real identity of his killers. For over twenty years Gardai told the
Ludlow family that the IRA was responsible but now it appears that all that time
they knew that assertion to be untrue.
As revealed in
last week's edition Seamus Ludlow's killers were three members of a Red Hand
Commando unit, two of whom were officers in the British Army's Ulster Defence
Regiment, who drove across the Border on the night of May 1st, 1976 to carry out
the killing.
According to the
testimony of a fourth man who was with them the RUC Special Branch was given
full details of the killing and the culprits in 1987 but failed to act on the
information. The man told a Special Branch officer that Seamus Ludlow (47) was a
random victim, picked up while thumbing a lift on the Dundalk-Belfast Road and
then shot by one of the Red Hand Commandos.
The source of the
allegation, Paul Hosking, then a 19 year old factory worker, was caught up in
the affair when he went drinking with men he knew to be off-duty UDR soldiers
but ended up a horrified witness to Seamus Ludlow's killing. He was later
threatened with death if he told the authorities.
He and the three
Red Hand Commandos were arrested by RUC detectives three weeks ago for
questioning. They were released without charge and a report sent to the North's
Director of Public Prosecutions. The failure of the RUC to bring charges either
now or in the past has fuelled speculation that at least one of the Red Hand
Commandos was a security force agent and that the killing was covered up in 1976
in order to protect an informer.
An investigation
by the Sunday Tribune has also revealed that in the days following the killing
the British Army took an interest in the line of inquiry being pursued by Garda
detectives. By contrast, Ludlow family sources say, the RUC were much less
interested in the case. This raises the intriguing possibility that if there was
an informer in the midst of the Red Hand Commando unit he may have been working
for British military intelligence rather than the police.
The investigation
has also uncovered disturbing allegations that Garda Special Branch and CID
detectives in the Dundalk area mounted a smear campaign against the Ludlow
family in 1976. Two family members were told separately and by different
detectives that Seamus Ludlow had been killed by the IRA for informing and that
members of the Ludlow family knew about it beforehand. (The Sunday Tribune has
been furnished with the names of the Garda detectives involved in this but for
legal reasons will not publish them)
According to
family sources Garda allegations of IRA responsibility started within hours of
the discovery of Seamus Ludlow's body, dumped in a hedgerow not far from his
home on May 2nd, 1976.
Michael Donegan, a
nephew of Seamus Ludlow who was in his early twenties at the time recalls the
events: "Their (the Garda) attitude was that he was shot by the IRA and he
must be an informer. They basically tried to say that he drank in pubs where
other people drank, like the Border Inn, near Drumadd barracks. At that time if
you were a republican you would have drunk there and you would have met Seamus
Ludlow.
"He wasn't
married. He lived for his work, his mother and his drink. He didn't go out for a
fight or a carry-on, he went out for a quiet social drink and he met lots of
people. So he knew a lot of republicans. That was the basis for the informer
allegation".
 Another
nephew, Jimmy Sharkey, who was also in his early 20's at the time concurs. He
was twice questioned by Garda detectives, once for nearly four hours, and
believes he was a suspect in the Gardai's eyes. One of the policemen was very
aggressive towards him "C would use very violent language, in fact his
superior had to caution him. He was saying things like 'It was the IRA, you
fucking well know it was the IRA' ", he recalls.
Michael Donegan's
father, Kevin, who died six years ago, called regularly at Dundalk Garda station
after the murder to check up on progress in the investigation. "He had
established contact with a number of detectives and he wanted to know what was
happening", Michael Donegan remembers.
"He went in
about once every fortnight or so to see a couple of detectives called C and H.
This went on for about six months and they filled him full of shite. They were
telling him that not only did the IRA do it but it was a family affair, that
members of the family knew all about it. We were disgusted. They were saying
that a member of our family murdered him or got him murdered. We couldn't
believe it but my father went to his grave half believing what he had been
told".
A similar
experience happened to Seamus Ludlow's brother Kevin who lives now in Co Cavan.
"Any time I came back to Dundalk I would go and call on Sgt G and this was
him all the time: 'It was the IRA, the IRA, the IRA.' As a matter of fact he
accused one of our relations of knowing about it. 'I'll fucking get them', he
would say." The Sergeant was transferred to the Garda Special Branch after
the murder.
Jimmy Sharkey
echoes the allegation: "The Guards operated a dirty tricks campaign in
Dundalk at the time against our families and they were very good at it. To blame
republicans suited the situation at the time. Where we lived was a very
staunchly republican area so if the cap fits wear it. That's why they put out
this campaign to dishonour the family".
The Donegan branch
of the family, which lives in Dromintee, south Armagh, came across intriguing
evidence of British Army interest in the killing. A day after Seamus Ludlow's
funeral a military patrol called to their home.
Michael Donegan
takes up the story: "My father answered the door and they said: 'Mr Donegan
we want to talk to you, we've been sent here by the RUC to ask you a few
questions'. My father replied 'What has this got to do with you?' The soldiers
said that the RUC had sent them and what they wanted to know was what line of
inquiry the Garda were taking."
His father refused
to speak to them but went later to Forkhill barracks to talk to the RUC. But
there were no police there only military. He was taken by military helicopter to
Bessbrook Army base where a British officer quizzed him for over an hour.
"It was all about what line of inquiry the Gardai were taking", says
Michael Donegan. "But to this day no RUC man has ever questioned us about
the case nor shown any interest in it".
Cracks in the
Garda wall of solidarity over the Ludlow murder have appeared in the last couple
of years. Within three or four weeks of the killing in 1976 the Garda inquiry
suddenly stopped. A sympathetic local Garda recently told the Ludlow's he
believed orders to halt things had come from Dublin.
Then six months
ago Jimmy Sharkey met a senior detective who told him what he had long
suspected, that Gardai knew not long after the event who the real culprits were
and that implicitly the stories about IRA responsibility were rubbish.
"He told me
that a lot of information about these guys (the Red Hand Commando unit) was
known in 1976, shortly after Seamus was murdered. He said it was also known by
Gardai in Dundalk. They knew who did it. He also told me that one of the guys in
the car that night was giving information to the authorities. I reckon from what
he told me that they knew 60 to 70 per cent of the story back in 1976.
"I asked him
why this was never conveyed to the family and he said 'I don't know, I don't
know, I just don't know.' He kept saying that things were done differently in
those days."
The Ludlow family
say they will now press for an independent public inquiry into Seamus Ludlow's
death. They want the three Red Hand Commandos prosecuted. Of Paul Hosking, Jimmy
Sharkey has this to say: "Paul Hosking was an innocent party and still is
an innocent party. Where Seamus Ludlow was the victim in 1976, Paul Hosking is
now the victim. The family holds nothing against him and feels that only for him
we probably wouldn't be where we are today".
© Sunday Tribune
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The
Sunday Tribune, 8 March 1998: Ed Moloney The
killing of Seamus Ludlow: Northern Editor reports on how the RUC covered up the
part played by members of the security forces in a loyalist gang murder in
County Louth in 1976.
The
Sunday Tribune Editorial, 15 March 1998: Time
for Ludlow Inquiry.
The
Sunday Tribune, 30 August 1998: Gardai
had identities of Ludlow's killers
The
Sunday Tribune, 21 February 1999: Ludlow
inquiry faces resistance Calls for Ludlow inquiry face official resistance from
Justice department, writes Ed Moloney
The
Sunday Tribune, 16 May 1999: Ludlow
inquiry shows collusion
The
Sunday Tribune, 23 May 1999: Cabinet
to decide on Ludlow inquiry
The
Sunday Tribune, 8 August 1999: The
case that is not going to go away
The
Sunday Tribune, Letters to the Editor, 19 September
1999: In support of Ed Moloney
The
Sunday Tribune, 3 October 1999: Ludlow
inquiry limited
The
Sunday Tribune, Sunday 17
October 1999, by Ed Moloney: North's
DPP has decided not to charge Loyalists arrested in connection with Ludlow
killing
The
Sunday Tribune, 12 December 1999: O'Donoghue
to consider 'Public' inquiry into Ludlow murder
The
Sunday Tribune, 15 April 2001: O'Loan
asked to investigate Ludlow killing
The
Sunday Tribune, 20 May 2001: Inquiry
into Louth murder criticised
The
Sunday Tribune, 2 December 2001: Long
list of those who want no Finucane inquiry
Home Page Top
Last Edited: 23 August 2002
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