Thank you for
coming and please call again to hear more about the Ludlow
family's campaign for a public inquiry into this innocent
man's death in north County Louth, Ireland, in May 1976, at
the hands of Loyalist Red Hand Commando and
British Army
killers from County Down, in the north of Ireland.
The site is divided into two sections - as seen in the
menu to the left:
An introduction to the murder
of Seamus Ludlow and the long cover-up - with background information and a chronology giving an outline of
the Ludlow family's experience from 1976 to recent times.
The
Ludlow family's long campaign for Truth and Justice
-
outlining
recent developments in their struggle for a
public inquiry and including the full text of an independent
report, produced in February 1999, by Jane Winter of British
Irish Rights Watch, London.
These groups all support our demands for public
inquiries - north and south - to get the full truth behind
Seamus Ludlow's murder and the long cover-up and smear
campaign that protected his killers.
This site will be updated with
further information, including press
reports. Follow the links at the left margin to
get to other pages.
Visitors are welcome to leave messages
on our new Bravenet Guestmap Guest
Book. If you support our demands, please visit the
guestmap. Please show your support for justice for Seamus
Ludlow.
Our
original BeSeen.com
Guestbook has now closed, but visitors can view the kind
messages posted there by other supporters on another page.
Seamus
Ludlow was for many years a forgotten and unrecognised victim of the Troubles,
denied justice and recognition as an innocent victim of
pro-British sectarian murder gangs and smeared for political reasons by
the authorities who failed in their duty to uphold the law
and protect the innocent.
The
Ludlow family today demands truth and justice for their
loved one. They demand nothing less than full disclosure of
the truth behind this shocking murder through public
inquiries on both sides of the Irish border.
Two of Seamus
Ludlow's loyalist killers - whose names are all known to the
Ludlow family - were British soldiers at the time of his
murder in May 1976. They are known to have been members of
the locally recruited, and almost entirely Protestant and
loyalist, Ulster Defence Regiment (UDR), and one of the
suspects has been identified as a captain in that
discredited regiment.
Shamefully,
lies about this innocent victim of British terrorism in
Ireland later featured in evil books of propaganda for the
British
Army and SAS. The victim's memory was disgraced by false
allegations that he was an informer for the British
authorities in the North who was killed by the IRA, and that
he deserved his fate! Disgraceful messages left briefly by
sick minded Loyalists on this site's guestbook have attempted to
perpetuate these utterly false lies. Naturally, such
messages have been removed!
Seamus Ludlow
(47), an innocent and completely inoffensive man, was
abducted while on his way home from a Dundalk bar around
midnight on 1 May 1976. He was taken to a lane near his
Thistlecross, Mountpleasant, home, just a short distance
south of the border in County Louth, and shot
three times. The body was then dumped high upon a ditch and
the killers made good their escape.
To this day,
Seamus Ludlow's Loyalist killers have never faced justice;
indeed, the Ludlow family is now painfully aware that they
have in fact been protected all along by the Royal Ulster
Constabulary (RUC) and the Irish gardai. It has been
revealed that the RUC had identified these killers within
seven months of the crime being committed - but they did
nothing with the information in their possession! They did
not pass information to the fardai until 1979 - and,
shamefully, the gardai did not request further action of the
RUC.
Four
men, all Loyalists, three with connections to the outlawed
Red Hand Commando murder gang, were finally arrested for questioning
about this crime by the RUC in February
1998, but they were all released without charge, even
though two had made self-incriminating statements about
their involvemnt in the murder of Seamus Ludlow..
Investigation
files on all four suspects were sent to the Northern Ireland
Director of Public Prosecutions (NIDPP), who eventually
decided that none of the men would face charges for this
murder.
No reason for this failure to press charges has ever been
given!
One of these
men
,
Paul Hosking,
has gone public and told the story of his presence as a
witness at the murder of Seamus Ludlow. His story has
appeared in an article by journalist Ed Moloney in the
Sunday Tribune of 8 March 1998. It is the story he has given
to the RUC on two occasions - in 1987 and 1998 - but no
further action has been taken.
The
"reformed" RUC has recently been renamed the
Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI), but still no
further action has been taken against the men who murdered
Seamus Ludlow. Such is the force's indifference that a
Ludlow family request made in writing in 1999 for a meeting
with the Chief Constable Ronnie Flanagan to discuss the
investigation has never been granted!
Mr Flanagan has now retired, without ever responding to the
Ludlow family's request.
The Ludlow
family demand to know why these murderers have been
protected by the RUC, the NIDPP, and the gardai. Why was
Seamus Ludlow's reputation smeared by the authorities? Was
it to protect the image of the British Army's notorious UDR
(now renamed the Royal Irish Regiment (RIR), the regiment
that sheltered at least two of the killers.
Was
it to protect an agent or intelligence asset among the
killers? Or were these evil men engaged in military
operations for the British authorities across the Irish
border? These are the questions - and there are many more - that must be
answered by the RUC, the British Army and the gardai.
21 February 2002 - The Ludlow family was informed that
the Dublin Government had decided to disregard their demands
for a public inquiry and would go ahead with a private
inquiry under Mr Justice Henry
Barron. This information was
conveyed by Mr Michael McDowell, the then Attorney General. (Mr
McDowell is now the Minister for Justice.)
The
AG was reassured that the Ludlow family's position
regarding the private Barron Inquiry had not altered since
their previous meeting with Mr John O'Donoghue, then Minister
for Justice. For more about this please read the report from the Dundalk
Democrat. of 23 February 2002.
See also
The Irish News, 2
3
February 2002:
'Public
inquiry needed'. Despite their
misgivings about the Irish Government's proposals, the Ludlow
family have had useful meetings with Mr Justice
Barron regarding his private inquiry into the murder of
Seamus Ludlow. Following legal advice the Ludlow family
decided to give Mr Justice Barron their full cooperation.
At a meeting on 14 November 2002, Mr Justice Barron reported that
he had received practically no cooperation from the British
authorities in the North of Ireland, where no doubt there
are RUC and British Army security files that would be very
helpful in getting at the truth behind the murder of Seamus
Ludlow.
Please
click here for the proposed Terms
of Reference for the private Barron inquiry. This page
also features a recent letter from the Department of the
Taoiseach which gives further details of the proposed Joint
Oireachtas Committee inquiry process. The recent Supreme
Court decision in the Abbeylara case may place this public
element of the Irish government's inquiry in some doubt.
Read
the Dundalk Democrat's
report of the Ludlow family's constructive meeting of 19 April
2002 with Mr Justice Henry Barron.
In
another development, on 4 March 2002, members of the Ludlow
family, once again accompanied by Jane Winter of BIRW, met
with Police Ombudsman Mrs Nuala O'Loan and her investigations team in
Belfast.
Among
a number of surprising revelations was the fact that the RUC
(now the PSNI) first became aware of the Loyalist killers' identities and
other substantive information as
early as 1977 and that, for reasons not yet specified, this
information was withheld from the gardai until 1979. It was
also revealed that there was no new information on file at
the time of the four arrests in February 1998, and that the
arrests were based solely on the information that had been
available in 1979 - or was that 1977 (and only seven months
after Seamus Ludlow's murder)?
No
information could be provided to account for the RUC's
failure to pass the information on to the gardai before 1979,
nor could it be shown that the RUC did anything at all with
this information. The Ludlow family was not at all impressed
by this apparent failure of the RUC to apprehend or take any
action at all against the killers of Seamus Ludlow.
The
Ludlow family does not share the ombudsman's belief that the
RUC behaved properly in this case. The shameful and
inexplicable failure of the gardai to act with the
information they received in 1979 in no way excuses the
RUC's inaction. Go to Meeting
the Police Ombudsman for further information.
See
interview with Ludlow family member Jimmy Sharkey in The
Dundalk Democrat, 9 March 2002.
3 July 2002 - In an
important new development for the Ludlow family, the office of
the Irish Attorney General
Rory Brady wrote to the Ludlow family solicitor regarding the holding
of a fresh inquest into the death of Seamus Ludlow.
The family's lawyer had
written on 30 May 2002 requesting of the AG that he exercise
his powers under section 24(1) of the Coroners Act, 1962 and
direct the holding of a fresh inquest into the death of Seamus
Ludlow.
The Ludlow family had long
complained of the way that the original inquest was conducted
in their absence. The Gardai appear to have gone to certain lengths
to ensure that the family was not present. Another issue of
contention was the failure of the original inquest to examine
the forensics and ballistic reports that were available at
that time. It is hoped that a fresh inquest will put right
some of the obvious failings of the inquest of 19 August 1976.
"I
am now pleased to inform you that the Attorney General has
acceded to that request, which you have made on behalf of the
relatives of Mr Ludlow.
"The
Attorney has, by a recent letter, directedthe Coroner
for County Louth, Mr Ronan Maguire BL to hold an inquest into
the death of Seamus Ludlow."
As yet no further details as
to the date of this new inquest are available. This
important new development was reported in the local Dundalk
Democrat on 20 July 2002.
In March 2003 the Ludlow
family heard from a journalist
that the coroner Mr Maguire wanted to meet with the family
shortly and that he intended to grant full access to the
gardai's murder investigation file - apparently an extensive
document containing 100 witness statements. This welcome
development contrasted completely with the stubborn refusal of
both the gardai and the RUC/PSNI to turn over their
"confidential" files to the Ludlow family.
It remained to be seen
whether the files concerned included the recent internal gardai
Murphy investigation which examined the role of the gardai in
the original botched investigation of 1976; or, indeed, the file that was received from the RUC in 1979 - the file that
identified at least three of Seamus Ludlow's alleged killers.
When the file was handed
over it contained only witness statements, many of which were
barely legible, and there was no sign of the vital forensics
and ballistics reports.
As 2003 was coming to a
close there were reports that the Gardai were apparently
resisting requests from the Coroner for access to the Murphy
investigation report of 1998. See article from The Irish
News, 7 October 2003: Coroner
still awaiting copy of murder report
In another important
development the Celtic League
organization called for a public inquiry at its Annual General
Meeting, held in the Isle of Man. The Celtic League's statement
can be found on this site.
The Murphy file was finally
handed over to the Louth Coroner in October 2004 - more than
two full years after the fresh inquest was announced. The
garda obstruction only ceased when the Coroner threatened to
refer it to the Attorney General.
Latest
- RTE report:
Ludlow
inquest preliminary hearing soon
11 November 2004 20:06
The
Louth County Coroner is to hold a preliminary hearing in
the coming weeks into the death of Seamus Ludlow, the
forestry worker murdered by loyalists on 2 May 1976.
Ronan
McGuire recently received and is still studying the
so-called Murphy Report. That was the review of the
original garda investigation into the murder, carried
out by Superintendent Ted Murphy in the late 1990s.
Mr
McGuire said he proposed holding a preliminary hearing
involving members of the Ludlow family and garda
representatives to discuss the scope of the inquest.
Much
has already been written
about Seamus Ludlow's death, and much of it has distorted
the facts. He has been falsely accused in British and Irish
quarters of being an informer for the British forces in the
Six Counties - a foul charge that the Ludlow family has
always denied. He has been alleged to have been murdered by
the IRA - who have always denied that charge. It has also
been falsely claimed by gardai in Dundalk that members of
the Ludlow family were involved in this foul crime.
Such evil lies - British and
Irish - were spread to distract attention away from the
truth that this was a sectarian murder committed in the
Irish state by British state forces who may have enjoyed the
collusion of the Irish authorities.
These evil lies persisted even
though, as we now know, the true identities of the
Loyalist/UDR killers were known very soon after Seamus
Ludlow was murdered. It is known that both the RUC and the
Irish gardai had a file on at least three of the killers in
1979, if not much earlier. - that their names were known by
1977! Yet, still, they did nothing to
bring the killers to justice. And still they protect them!
The Ludlow family has already
exposed the smear campaign that was used to blacken the
reputation of the innocent victim - both in the press and on
TV, and more recently in another Ludlow family website.
The Ludlow family has also given their truthful account to
internationally respected human rights activists and groups.
A detailed account has been published in the book
"Unfinished Business State Killings and the Quest for
Truth", by University of Ulster academic Professor Bill
Rolston (Beyond the Pale
Publications, Belfast, 2000).
In 2001, the Ludlow family
marked the 25th anniversary of this foul murder with a commemoration
at the memorial seen above, in the County Louth lane, near
the Ballymascanlan Hotel, where the crime was
committed on 2 May 1976.
The Ludlow
family hopes that in the very near future there will be
confirmation of an imminent public inquiry from the Dublin
Department of Justice. In the meantime a private inquiry is
proceeding under Mr Justice Henry Barron. The Ludlow family
has had several meetings with the distinguished judge and it
is hoped that he will call in his final report for a public
judicial inquiry.
Our demands for a public inquiry have met with silence
from the British authorities in Belfast who have failed to
acknowledge their forces' involvement in this horrific
crime. South of the border, the Dublin government stubbornly
refuses to accede to our demands for a public inquiry into
the Gardai's shameful role in this affair.
For
further information about this campaign please visit our Press
Coverage page where you will find links to pages
with national and local newspaper reports of important events since the murder of
Seamus Ludlow.
We ask you to speak out about this terrible injustice.
Support our demands for justice and truth for Seamus Ludlow.
Thank you.
From the website
of Radio Telefis Eireann (RTE) Radio, dated 18 February 1999:
Family of man
abducted and killed in 1976 claim there was a cover-up
One night at the beginning of May in 1976, a 47-year-old
forestry worker, Seamus Ludlow, was abducted and shot as he
was hitching a lift to his home in Dundalk. His killers have
still not been brought to justice. Seamus Ludlow's family
say he was an ordinary man, with no connections to any
paramilitary organisation. They believe loyalists were
responsible for his murder, and they claim there has been a
cover-up on both sides of the border to protect his killers.
I 25th
Anniversary Commemoration: I 1
I 2
I 3
I 4
I
The Ludlow family supports the
campaign by the Rooney and Watters families of Dundalk for
an inquiry into the murderous Dundalk Bombing of 19 December
1975 which resulted in the sectarian murder of Jack Rooney
and Hugh Watters. Further information can be accessed at
their campaign
website.
