BBC film about IRA funeral murders to air in March

Unheard testimony from the families of victims of an attack on an IRA funeral by the loyalist paramilitary member Michael Stone and of a revenge attack at a subsequent funeral that killed two British corporals is to be revealed in a BBC documentary to mark the 30th anniversary of the atrocities.

The Funeral Murders features accounts from family members of the three men killed by Stone at the first funeral – Kevin Brady, Thomas McErlean and John Murray – who the BBC said have not spoken to the media until now about the day their relatives were murdered.

The film has been made by acclaimed film-maker Vanessa Engle, who has previously won critical praise for her candid questioning in revelatory television documentaries such as Inside Harley Street.

In The Funeral Murders, Engle has also spoken to the funeral director who conducted both funerals in March 1988 as well as ex-army and ex-Royal Ulster Constabulary figures – none of whom have spoken about the events before.

Viewers around the world were shocked by the Milltown cemetery deaths, which happened at the funeral of three IRA members shot dead by the SAS in Gibraltar.

Television news cameras captured the scenes of terror at the graveyard in Belfast as Stone fired shots and threw grenades at mourners, failing to to kill his targets, Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness, but killing the three men and injuring 60 people, including pensioners and children. He hatched the plot in revenge for the IRA’s Enniskillen Remembrance Day memorial service bombings the previous year.

Source: theguardian