By Stuart Ross
Seven years ago, on a snowy Saturday in March, a record crowd braved the cold to watch Syracuse's 11th annual St Patrick's Day parade. More than 160,000 central New Yorkers enjoyed an afternoon full of bands, floats and — as they say in Ireland — "good craic". Yet a bittersweet tie to the Emerald Isle marked the 1993 parade; it was dedicated to the memory of Peter McBride, a young Belfast teen murdered by British soldiers just months earlier.
Peter was one of the many "alumni" of a program called Project Children. The program brings Irish children to the US to spend six weeks with host families. It provides the kids — both Protestant and Catholic — with a well-deserved summer break from the political violence back home: "For a short time, they're allowed to be children."
Peter spent the summers of 1985 and 1986 with the family of William and Rita Sopchak of Liverpool, New York. He was just a 10-year-old when they first greeted him at Syracuse's Hancock International Airport.
"He was a great, great kid", said Rita Sopchak. "He really was."
"There was so much to like about Peter. He was full of humour — full of blarney", she said with a smile.
In August 1986, young Peter returned home to Ireland. He would spend the last six years of his life in his native Belfast — in the New Lodge district on the city's north side. There, the short life of this young father of two would come to a tragic end.
Cold-blooded murder
The early 1990s were not a good time in Ireland. Political violence was on the rise in the north, especially in parts of Belfast and in the mid-Ulster area. Loyalist death squads in particular had stepped up their campaign against the Catholic community. Loyalists, however, did not murder Peter McBride; he was murdered by Britain's so-called "peacekeepers".
At approximately 10.15am, on September 4, Peter was shot dead after running away from a British army foot patrol. The soldiers, members of the army's Scots Guards regiment, had already stopped, questioned and searched the teen. They already knew his name, where he lived and — most importantly — that he was unarmed. Still, they shot him.
Within minutes of the shooting, Guardsmen Jim Fisher and Mark Wright were whisked away to Girwood Barracks in Belfast. The Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) — the police force in the north of Ireland — were denied access to the soldiers for at least 10 hours.
"One can already visualise the buckets of whitewash being flown in to deal with the present incident", said an editorial in the Irish News. After all, hadn't that been the typical British response since the days of Lord Widgery and the Bloody Sunday massacre in 1972?
Locals believed the shooting was an act of retaliation or revenge. Only weeks before Peter's murder, a 24-year-old soldier had been shot dead by an IRA sniper in the New Lodge area of city.
And such a response from the British army wasn't necessarily uncommon. In May of that year members of the Third Parachute Regiment carried out reprisals against nationalists in Coalisland, County Tyrone. (They were later removed from their patrolling duties before their tour of duty ended.)
End of story?
After nearly two and a half decades of conflict in Ireland, the British army and RUC had killed nearly 400 people; more than 60 of those killed were children. Though many of these killings were in highly controversial circumstances, few members of the security forces had ever faced prosecution. Fisher and Wright, however, did.
The Guardsmen's case came before the Belfast crown court in the spring of 1994. Only months earlier, two Royal Marines had been cleared of all charges relating to the December 1990 shooting of 20-year-old Fergal Caraher in Cullyhanna, County Armagh.
During the course of their trial, Lord Justice Kelly branded Fisher and Wright as "untruthful and evasive". Neither soldier ever expressed any remorse for his actions, indeed, quite the contrary. Their behavior in court displayed a certain level of arrogance and was of great distress to the McBrides. "They stood there like two children caught stealing a packet of sweets", said a family member.
Months later, Guardsmen Fisher and Wright were convicted and sentenced to life in prison for Peter's murder. The two soldiers were only the third and fourth soldiers ever convicted of murdering a civilian while on duty in Ireland.
A subsequent appeal on behalf of the soldiers was dismissed in December 1995. An appeal to the British House of Lords was denied in March 1996. Nevertheless, things were far from over for the two soldiers; the British government had already set dangerous precedents in cases such as theirs.
In 1984, Private Ian Thain was convicted of the murder of 22-year-old Thomas "Kidso" Reilly of West Belfast. He was the first British soldier to be convicted of such a crime in Ireland. Thain served less than four years of his life sentence.
Nearly 10 years later, Private Lee Clegg of the Parachute Regiment was convicted of the murder of 18-year-old Karen Reilly. Clegg also spent less than four years of his life sentence behind bars; his murder conviction was later overturned. (A second conviction in relation to the death of Belfast teen Martin Peake was overturned in January.)
Upon release, both Clegg and Thain were welcomed back into their regiments.
Adding insult to injury
By late 1996, a campaign to free the two convicted murderers began to make headlines in both Scotland and England. The campaign was led by a number of former British army officers. It was uncritically supported by a number of British MPs and much of the British media.
Campaigners were quick to point out that the two soldiers had already served longer sentences than either Clegg or Thain. "Natural justice" meant the Guardsmen should be released. Besides, argued their supporters, they were "only doing their duty".
The Pat Finucane Centre, a Derry-based human rights group, was quick to point out the racist nature of the Fisher and Wright campaign. "The premise behind the entire thing", said a spokesperson, "is that an Irish life is somehow worth less than another life".
In an effort to counter the campaign's propaganda, the Centre began working closely with the McBride family. They put together a fact file on Peter's murder, issued press releases and lobbied senior politicians.
The ongoing crusade to free both Fisher and Wright was deeply upsetting to Peter's family. "They committed murder and they should serve their time", said Peter's father, Peter senior. Still, Irish politics were changing and with the advent of the Good Friday Agreement, the release of all prisoners of the conflict seemed imminent.
Fight back
Prisoner releases were a central part of the Good Friday Agreement, particularly to Republicans. Nevertheless, such releases would be difficult for the families of the many victims of political violence in Ireland.
Nearly six years to the day of Peter's murder, Guardsmen Fisher and Wright were released from Maghaberrry prison in County Antrim. The two were freed on the word of British secretary of state Mo Mowlam — outside the terms of the Good Friday Agreement. Critics described their early release as "a kick in the teeth for the McBride family and the wider [nationalist] community".
Two months later, an army board — comprised of senior army officers, a civil servant and a government minister — decided "exceptional reasons" would allow the two soldiers to remain in the British army. Normally, a murder conviction — indeed, almost any conviction — would have resulted in a soldier being discharged.
"I knew from the start that they would be released", said Peter's mother, Jean, "but when they were allowed back into the army it just floored me".
It was time to fight back. Lawyers acting on behalf of the McBride family decided to force a judicial review of the army board's so-called "exceptional reasons", which had never been done before.
In June, after a two-day hearing at Belfast High Court, Justice Kerr retired to consider his decision in the case. Judgement was delivered in September; the McBrides won their case.
"The McBrides' court victory, while unprecedented, was long overdue", said a spokesperson for the Pat Finucane Centre. "The next logical step in this case is for the army board to discharge the two soldiers".
How you can help
Discharging Guardsmen Fisher and Wright from the British army would help ease the pain felt by the McBride family. It would also help ease the pain felt by many other families whose loved ones have been at the receiving end of state violence in the north of Ireland. All too often these are the forgotten victims of "the Troubles".
The Pat Finucane Center has issued an action alert in regard to the Peter McBride case. The army board is expected to meet in the coming weeks. Please help us keep up the pressure on the British government and Ministry of Defense.
Emails, phone calls and faxes should be directed to: Minister of State for the Armed Forces John Spellar, e-mail For more information on the case, visit the Pat Finucane Centre's web site at <http://www.serve.com/pfc>.