many shootings in our town. I’d have known many people who were killed. The Kingsmills massacre was just six miles down the road. We had a shooting at the Tullyvallen Orange Hall where many Protestants were killed. We were at all those funerals. At my grandmother’s funeral, while we were carrying her remains out of the church, the police came to tell us that a bomb had been planted underneath somebody’s car who was a mourner. The whole graveyard had to be evacuated. We did not feel like we were being singled out, but certainly we felt a close affinity with people who were suffering in the Troubles.
From age eight, William felt called to be a minister. After ordination, he received his first call to the congregations of Pomeroy and Sandholes in East Tyrone, another Troubles hot spot. ‘I talked it over with my wife, and she was from a similar background to myself. Both of us felt that if God was calling us there, we had nothing to fear.’ In his first year, three people in his congregations were murdered and the area endured a series of bomb and mortar attacks.
When a member of his congregation was murdered, William was the first person the police contacted. They wanted him to visit the family first to break the news. William would pray with his wife and then make his way to the home of the bereaved family. ‘There is no easy way to break the news that your husband has been blown up, or that your son has been killed or kidnapped.’ From that point on, he was at the family’s disposal. ‘You read and pray with them, and you spend night and day with them. You try not to leave the house at all – 24/7.’ William helped plan the funeral, and then conducted it. If the family wanted him to send out a political message at a funeral, he obliged. ‘I would have been saying what I thought of the IRA. I would have been saying what I thought of government if they were trying to appease the IRA.’
For William, his pastoral duty of comforting the family included this political element. ‘The families were so thankful. There was this real desire to have a voice, to be heard. They would say: you always hear the other side, but you never hear our stories.’
‘I was left there very much on my own.’
Roy Neill was minister of First Castlederg, Co. Tyrone, for four decades; and of Killeter, Co. Tyrone, for two decades. A native of Co. Leitrim in the Republic, he felt at home among the farmers on the other side of the border. He had been in Castlederg for fifteen years before the first member of his congregation was murdered, in 1972. There would be eight more. ‘Then there were many more murders of other people who weren’t members of my church at all. I think there were thirty-one deaths in that area and seventy bombings. The town itself would have been absolutely wrecked on a number of occasions.’ Roy kept a scrapbook of the newspaper clippings describing their deaths. ‘A lot of them were young families. They were people who served in the security forces; that’s why they were targeted. They were hard-working people. They joined up to try and help the country get back to normality again.’
Roy called on the families in the immediate aftermath and continued for years with follow-up visits. It was important for the families that their relatives were not forgotten. Families often paid for plaques or memorials to be placed in the church building, bearing their loved ones’ names.
The Moderator assisted Roy with every funeral. Local clergy from the other denominations, Protestant and Catholic, also supported him. It was still difficult. ‘I always felt that I was left there very much on my own, dealing with people. You were back and forth to their homes frequently after these things happened, to see how they were and if there was anything you could help them with.’ Roy’s health suffered under the strain and he applied twice for early retirement. ‘Somehow I endured and fulfilled my full term.’ It has been two decades since he retired, but he visits Castlederg occasionally. He is glad the memorials in the church keep people’s memories alive. ‘When you visit, you might see people who you watched shedding tears at the time of their troubles. You’d meet them again, and the tears would come back to their eyes. We came through a lot together. I would hope that whatever I did, my ministry among them would have helped them.’
Preaching
‘The statement prevented retaliation.’
Russell Birney looked out over those gathered in Clarkesbridge Presbyterian. The small church was overflowing with mourners. It was a united service, organised after the murders in Tullyvallen Orange Hall. He read out a statement pledging that there would be no retaliation. It was an agreed statement, which Rev. John Hawthorne of the Reformed Presbyterian Church had helped him write. ‘I read out a statement, pleading for peace and that there be no retaliation for this event.’ Russell invited those who agreed with the statement to stand. Not everyone stood immediately, so he waited. And waited. And waited – until everyone in the church was on their feet.
During a time marked by tit-for-tat killings, it was a remarkable occasion. ‘I’ve been told subsequently that the statement prevented retaliation because there were people at the service who were determined they were going to avenge. We were speaking for the victims, for those who were wounded, because they were fine people who would not have wanted revenge. There was no tit-for-tat following Tullyvallen Orange Hall.’
‘No road is worth a life.’
During his time in Pomeroy and Sandholes, William Bingham was Deputy Grand Chaplain of the Orange Order and County Grand Chaplain of Armagh. He negotiated on behalf of the Orange Order during the most volatile years of Drumcree (1996–8). The Orange Order sought to parade to the Church of Ireland in Drumcree using the Garvaghy Road, which traversed a nationalist area. The run-up to the parade in 1996 and 1997 had been marred by violence and rioting. In the early hours of Sunday 12 July 1998, just hours before Orangemen from throughout Northern Ireland were due to gather at Drumcree, three young boys were murdered in an Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF) firebomb attack at their home in Ballymoney, Co. Antrim. Richard, Mark and Jason Quinn were from a mixed religious background – their mother was Catholic. The murders were understood as sectarian and driven by the tensions around Drumcree.
William was due to preach that morning in an Orange service at his church in Pomeroy. Given his high profile in the negotiations, the media descended en masse. William was as convinced as ever that the Orange Order had a right to parade, but not at any cost.
I spoke without notes because I thought, this has to come from my heart. The text I took was from the book of Micah: ‘What does the Lord require of you but to do justly, love mercy, and walk humbly with your God.’ I talked about the justice of the cause and the right that we had. Then I said: ‘No road is worth a life. Not the life of three little boys. Not the life of anybody. What’s happened in Ballymoney is wrong and is to be condemned. And if you’re intent on going to Drumcree tonight to cause violence, then go home. Don’t come.’
William’s words echoed beyond the walls of his rural church. First and Deputy First Ministers David Trimble and Seamus Mallon issued a statement: ‘Nothing can be gained from continuing this stand-off. As the Rev. William Bingham said, no road is worth a life and we echo that statement.’ Further violence was averted. But William acknowledged that, ‘Some felt I had betrayed the cause at Drumcree. Others were glad that it had been said and were very supportive.’
‘We must offer forgiveness unconditionally.’
On the day of the Enniskillen bomb, Gordon Wilson, a Methodist whose daughter Marie had been killed, gave an interview in which he said he bore no ill will towards her killers. His words lingered with David Cupples. ‘Gordon Wilson’s interview created a different atmosphere but polarised opinions over what is forgiveness. Did he have the right to forgive them? What does forgiveness mean? I knew that sooner or later the issue of forgiveness would have to be addressed.’ Five weeks after the bomb, David preached on forgiveness. He said then: ‘The debate rages in the Christian church about whether you can forgive people before they repent. I believe if we are to follow the example of Jesus, we must offer forgiveness unconditionally. But the person
