Priest seeks garda apology over sister’s death

A PRIEST whose sister was shot in an IRA ambush called on the gardaí yesterday to apologise for doing nothing to catch the killers.

Fr James Carr, from Fanad in Co Donegal, said there had been no searches, no house-to-house inquiries and no forensic examination after Brid Carr was shot dead on the Donegal-Tyrone border in 1971.

“It wasn’t just what the IRA did to us, it was what the State did to us. If the State had acted properly, there would be retribution for my family,” he said.

On November 19, 1971, Brid Carr was returning from a grocery trip when a three-man IRA unit began firing at a British Army patrol on the bridge between Lifford and Strabane.

The 26-year-old, who worked in the Intercounty Hotel in Lifford, died just inside the North’s borders.

“It’s accepted by all that it’s the IRA that actually killed her. She was clinically dead before she hit the ground,” said Fr Carr.

Three witnesses identified the Lifford-based IRA men responsible in interviews with gardaí but refused to give written statements.

Fr Carr, who is now working in the Donore Avenue parish in south Dublin, said he believed the gardaí might have been told to “go soft” on the IRA.

“There was no question of picking up the spent cartridges and having them examined or carrying out house-to-house searches. It gives me the impression that the IRA were in control of Lifford at the time,” he said.

The events surrounding Ms Carr’s death were examined last year by Judge Henry Barron as part of an investigation into the Dublin-Monaghan bombings.

His report noted that the garda investigators regarded further pursuit of the possibility of interviewing the three suspects as futile.

Former TD Des O’Malley, who was Minister for Justice in 1971, told Judge Barron that if he had seen that report, he would have told the gardaí it was not futile.

When Garda Commissioner Noel Conroy appeared before the Oireachtas Justice Committee in February, he rejected Fr Carr’s allegation about the force “going soft” on the IRA.

“The deputy also asked about the three suspects identified. Some of them are known to me personally. They have been arrested in the Donegal area on a number of occasions.”

Fr Carr said he did not want a new investigation to convict those responsible for his sister’s murder.

“I wouldn’t be interested in that. But I think the police could say ‘We made a mess of it and we were intimidated’.”

A garda spokesman said that Assistant Commissioner Martin Callinan, who was appointed as a liaison officer to victims’ families in the wake of the Barron report, would contact Fr Carr to discuss his concerns.