Murder of Henry Byrne and John Morley

1980s 1990s Henry Byrne and John Morley, two officers of the Garda Síochána, the police force of the Republic of Ireland, were murdered on 7 July 1980 by alleged members of the Irish National Liberation Army (INLA).

The Gardaí (Irish police) arrived on the scene but were unarmed and were unable to stop the armed men from escaping in a blue Ford Cortina.

[1] The perpetrators were intercepted by a Garda patrol car from Castlerea station with four Gardaí, including Detective John Morley, who was armed with an Uzi submachine gun.

One of the raiders jumped out of the Cortina and sprayed the patrol car with bullets, killing Garda Henry Byrne.

John Francis Morley, born in 1942 in Knock, County Mayo, was a Garda Síochána detective.

[9] Pringle always denied any involvement in the crime and his conviction was overturned by the High Court in 1995 due to discrepancies in the evidence.

[10] However, in July 2013, the Irish Supreme Court ruled that a prisoner serving 40 years for capital murder was entitled to the normal remission on his sentence if he met the conditions applied to other inmates.