[4] The incident was filmed by an overhead British Army helicopter and television news cameras; the images have been described by journalist Peter Taylor as some of the "most dramatic and harrowing" of the conflict in Northern Ireland.

The presence of large numbers of riot police and soldiers at IRA funerals was criticized for sparking unrest.

[5] On 6 March 1988, three unarmed IRA members alleged to have been preparing for a bomb attack on British military personnel[6] were killed by the Special Air Service (SAS) in Gibraltar during Operation Flavius.

The security forces agreed to stay away from the funeral in exchange for guarantees that there would be no three-volley salute by IRA gunmen.

According to the British Army, Wood and Howes ignored general orders to stay away from the area where the funeral was being held.

Soldiers and police officers suggested that the corporals had gone "wandering", and that Wood was showing his newly arrived colleague the republican districts of Belfast.

[12] Corporals Wood and Howes were wearing civilian clothes and driving in a silver Volkswagen Passat hatchback.

The Mac Brádaigh funeral was making its way along the Andersonstown Road towards Milltown Cemetery when the corporals' car appeared from the opposite direction.

The Redemptorist priest Father Alec Reid, who later played a significant part in the peace process leading to the Good Friday Agreement, intervened and attempted to save the soldiers, and asked people to call an ambulance.I got down between the two of them and I had my arm around this one and I was holding this one up by the shoulder ....

[17] The two soldiers were placed in a taxi and driven around to a waste ground near Penny Lane (South Link), just 200 yd (180 m) off the main Andersonstown Road.

[15] An unnamed soldier of the Royal Scots said his eight-man patrol was nearby and saw the attack on the corporals' car, but were told not to intervene.

The SAS unit was initially apprehended by the people lining the route in the belief that armed loyalists were attacking them and they were removed from the immediate vicinity.

[21]Northern Ireland Secretary Tom King acknowledged that the Milltown Cemetery attack and the killing of Wood and Howes were "wholly unacceptable and do require immediate review in regard to policing to be followed at any future funeral".

[5] The Conservative MP Michael Mates defended the "hands off" policy, saying "A return to heavy-handed policing could provoke riots, which is what the IRA want so they can say to the world 'They won't even let us bury our dead in peace.

The British prime minister at the time, Margaret Thatcher, called the killings "an act of appalling savagery".

[13] Maguire is now chairman of the Belfast office of Community Restorative Justice Ireland, a police-supported group aimed at dealing with low-level crime through mediation and intended to replace the practice of "punishment beatings" and kneecappings by paramilitaries.

The men (Pat Kane, Mickey Timmons, and Seán Ó Ceallaigh) were dubbed the "Casement Three" by republicans who disputed the validity of their convictions.

[29] Terence Clarke, the chief steward on the day, was sentenced to seven years' imprisonment for assaulting Wood.

[citation needed] In March 2018, BBC Two aired the Vanessa Engle documentary, The Funeral Murders, which included eyewitness testimonies of the events of that day.