Avenue Bar shooting

In 1988, both the UVF and the UDA had stepped up their campaigns against the Nationalist community, in part due to receiving a large arms shipment of handguns and assault rifles from South Africa. On 15 January, the UVF shot dead Catholic civilian Billy Kane at his home in the New Lodge. The objective of the Avenue Bar attack was to kill a leading Republican from the Unity Flats.

The attack occurred at 2:20pm when the bar was crowded with patrons. Two gunmen walked into the pub after being admitted through an electronic security door. A witness said they at first seemed to be looking for someone, but then opened fire indiscriminately with automatic weapons. People threw glasses at the gunmen in an attempt to fight them off. The gunmen escaped in a car which had been hijacked 20 minutes earlier on the Shankill Road, and which was found abandoned at Carlow Street behind Shankill Leisure Centre shortly after the attack. The three victims were Stephen McGahan (27), from the New Lodge, Damien Devlin (24), from Andersonstown, and Paul McBride (27), from Ardoyne. The UVF…