1994 Shankill Road killings

The 1994 Shankill Road killings
Part of the Troubles
Date 16 June 1994 Location Shankill Road, Belfast Result Successful INLA ambush and getaway
Belligerents
Irish National Liberation Army	UVF
Commanders and leaders
Gino Gallagher	Trevor King †
Strength
4 volunteers	3 volunteers
Casualties and losses
none	3 killed

The 1994 Shankill Road killings took place on 16 June 1994. The Irish National Liberation Army (INLA) shot dead three Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF) members – high-ranking member Trevor King, Colin Craig and David Hamilton – on the Shankill Road in Belfast, close to the UVF HQ.The following day, the UVF launched two 'retaliatory' attacks. In the first, UVF members shot dead a Catholic civilian taxi driver in Carrickfergus. In the second, they shot dead two Protestant civilians in Newtownabbey, whom they believed were Catholics. The Loughinisland massacre, two days later, is believed to have been a further retaliation.

In the months leading up to the 1994 Provisional IRA and Combined Loyalist Military Command (CLMC) ceasefires, there was a brief return to the tit-for-tat killings of the mid-1970s and there had been a number of these attacks which resulted in paramilitary as well as civilian deaths. In May the UVF shot and killed a volunteer of the IRA's Dublin Brigade, Martin Doherty after he thwarted a bomb attack at a pub in Dublin's Pearse Street. At the start of June, a leading loyalist paramilitary was injured in an IRA bomb attack in Portadown.

On 16 June 1994, high-ranking UVF volunteer Trevor King was standing on the corner of the Shankill Road and Spier's Place talking to fellow UVF members, David Hamilton (43) and Colin Craig (31). They were about one hundred yards away from the UVF headquarters, which was located in rooms above a shop known as "The Eagle". A car drove past them and as it did so, Irish National Liberation Army (INLA) gunmen inside the vehicle opened fire on the three men. The car was later found burning close to Divis tower. David Lister and Hugh Jordan claimed that Gino Gallagher, who was himself shot dead in 1996 during an internal dispute, was the main gunman in the attack. However, Henry McDonald and Jack Holland said that Gallagher was inside the car which was scouting the area for UVF members, and not one of the gunmen. Colin Craig was killed on the spot. King and David Hamilton lay in the street, seriously wounded as panic and chaos erupted on the Shankill in the wake of the shooting. Presbyterian minister, the Reverend Roy Magee was in "The Eagle" discussing an upcoming Combined Loyalist Military Command (CLMC) meeting and the possibility of a loyalist ceasefire with the UVF Brigade Staff when the attack took place. He and the others raced out of the building after hearing the gunfire. He later described the scene he came upon outside.

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