by Kevin Meagher
By now, you’ve probably heard of Jean McConville, the Belfast mother of ten who was brutally murdered and “disappeared” by the IRA in 1972. You’ve probably not, however, heard of Joan Connelly.
She was another Belfast woman, a mother of eight, who was also brutally killed back in the early 1970s. She went to aid a young man who had just been shot in the street before the same British soldiers turned their rifles on her, shooting her in the head and body.
Her injuries were so serious that half her face was blown off. Joan’s husband could only identify her, on the third attempt, as he recognised her red hair.
This was in August 1971 during Operation Demetrius when internment without trial was brought in to target “IRA ringleaders”. Weak intelligence and the sectarianism of the Stormont government instead saw hundreds of ordinary Catholics arrested and jailed, (but not a single loyalist).
Northern Ireland erupted and in the ensuing tumult, eleven people were killed by the British army over a two-day period in the Ballymurphy area of Belfast. As well as Connelly, soldiers also shot dead a Catholic priest.
Although the Police Service of Northern Ireland has just spent 96 hours grilling Sinn Fein President Gerry Adams about Jean McConville’s heinous murder, there will be no similar effort expended investigating Joan Connelly’s.
We know this because Northern Ireland Secretary Theresa Villiers last week ruled out setting up an inquiry into the Ballymurphy killings.
