The Kingsmill massacre was a mass shooting that took place on 5 January 1976 near the village of Whitecross in south County Armagh, Northern Ireland.

A 2011 report by the Historical Enquiries Team (HET) found that members of the Provisional IRA carried out the attack, despite the organisation being on ceasefire.

[7] [a] According to a police intelligence report, the Provisional IRA leadership reprimanded its South Armagh Brigade for carrying out sectarian killings.

[10] Between the beginning of the truce (10 February 1975) and the Kingsmill massacre, loyalist paramilitaries killed 35 Catholic civilians in County Armagh or on its borders.

[17] The report said "The murderous attacks on the Reavey and O'Dowd families were simply the catalyst for the premeditated and calculated slaughter of these innocent and defenceless men".

[23] The Catholic worker, Richard Hughes, had managed to stop a car and was driven to Bessbrook RUC station, where he raised the alarm.

[32] Alan Black was appointed a Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) in the 2021 New Year Honours, for his cross-community work since the massacre.

[37]However, a 2011 report by the HET concluded that Provisional IRA members were responsible[5][38] and that the event was planned before the Reavey and O'Dowd killings which had taken place the previous day, and that South Armagh Republican Action Force was a cover name.

[18] Responding to the report, Sinn Féin spokesman Mitchel McLaughlin said that he did "not dispute the sectarian nature of the killings" but continued to believe "the denials by the IRA that they were involved".

O'Callaghan claims that IRA Chief of Staff, Seamus Twomey, authorised the attack after Brian Keenan argued it was the only way to prevent more Catholics from being killed.

[47] According to a police intelligence report, the IRA Army Council reprimanded the South Armagh Brigade six weeks before the massacre for carrying out sectarian killings.

[34] In 2012, a secret Royal Military Police (RMP) document shown to the Sunday World newspaper revealed that the gunman who finished off the dying men could have been arrested five months later.

The document says that the man (referred to as 'P') was wounded when British soldiers engaged an IRA unit near the Mountain House Inn in South Armagh on 25 June 1976.

[26] Alan Black, the only survivor of Kingsmill, believes that IRA members involved in the massacre were double agents working for the British authorities.

[51] John Weir, a former RUC officer and member of the "Glenanne gang", claims he discovered that the intelligence services, through Nairac, was "playing republican and loyalist paramilitaries off against each other".

Judge Sherrard added that "Captain Nairac was based in London, fully engaged in duties and was not in south Armagh, at the time".

He added that these rumours were "largely allayed" and concluded by stating, "The notion that he would have been able to infiltrate the IRA is the stuff of utter fantasy, The inquest is entirely satisfied he had no role whatsoever.

[54] In 1999, Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) leader Ian Paisley stated in the House of Commons that Eugene Reavey was a "well-known republican" and had "set up the Kingsmills massacre".

Ronnie Flanagan, chief constable of the RUC, said there was "no evidence whatsoever" to connect Reavey with the massacre, and that no police file contained any such allegation.

Merlyn Rees, the British Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, condemned the massacre and forecasted that the violence would escalate, saying "This is the way it will go on unless someone in their right senses stops it, it will go on".

[64] Two days after the massacre, the British Prime Minister Harold Wilson announced that the Special Air Service (SAS) was being sent into South Armagh.

[69] The attack was allegedly called off because the UVF leadership ruled it would be "morally unacceptable" and would lead to a harsh IRA response and likely civil war.

This gang, led by Lenny Murphy, operated in Belfast and was notorious for its late-night kidnapping, torture and murder (by throat slashing) of random Catholic civilians.

Murphy planned to attack a lorry that ferried Catholic workmen to Corry's Timber Yard in West Belfast, shooting all on board.

[72] Some loyalists claim the Kingsmill massacre was the reason they joined paramilitary groups, notably Billy Wright, who said, I was 15 when those workmen were pulled out of that bus and shot dead.

[75] McCaughey had colluded with loyalists before the Kingsmill attack and later admitted taking part in the Reavey killings the day before, he claimed he "was at the house but fired no shots".

[86][87] The following year, Northern Ireland's Environment Minister Alex Attwood (of the SDLP) apologised after his department mistakenly sent a letter to the landowner demanding it be removed for lack of planning permission.

Unionist politician William Irwin criticised the department and said it had not taken action against "illegal roadside terrorist memorials" erected by republicans.

[88][89] In February 2012, controversy arose when Willie Frazer of FAIR proposed a "March for Justice" in which the victims' relatives, along with 11 loyalist bands, would follow the route taken by the workmen the night they were killed.

This would have meant passing through the mainly Catholic village of Whitecross and past the homes of the Reavey family, where the three brothers had been killed the night before the massacre.