Donegal couple murdered by UDA 'not intended victims', say relatives

Relatives of Mr Oliver Boyce and Ms Bríd Porter, understood to have been murdered by members of the UDA in 1973, have told the Oireachtas Sub-Committee on the Barron Report that they believed the couple were not the intended victims of the attack.

Mr Hugo Boyce, brother of Oliver, who was murdered along with his fiancée, Bríd, in the early hours of New Year's Day, 1973, said he believed the Donegal couple were abducted "by accident" but were murdered when the UDA discovered they were Catholics.

Mr Boyce and Ms Porter, who were 25 and 21 years of age respectively when they died, were taken from their car near Burnfoot on the road between Buncrana and Muff in Co Donegal and killed. The Barron inquiry concluded that members of the UDA were responsible for their murders.

Mr Boyce said that he, his family and all the relevant authorities knew the names of the three men who killed the young couple, yet they had never been brought to justice.

"The RUC knows who they are, the gardaí know, the dogs in the street know, we can't understand why they have not been extradited. I can't understand why nobody has been brought to justice for these atrocities."

It was not just the case that his brother and Ms Porter had been in the wrong place at the wrong time, he said. "I feel that the wrong government was in power at the wrong time."

Mrs Ann McDermott, Ms Porter's sister, told the committee that she had been working in Derry when her sister was killed and the family had been unable to contact her to tell her because she had no telephone. She learned that her sister and Mr Boyce had been killed when she heard their names on the radio news. "A short time later a local priest came to tell me. . . He was too late."

Fianna Fáil TD Mr Seán Ó Fearghail asked if either family had been kept informed about ongoing investigations into the murders.

Mr Boyce said he and members of his family were taken to the Garda station at Buncrana for questioning after the murders but were never contacted again.

Mrs McDermott said she and her husband tried to resume inquiries in the 1980s, but she said her mother was told by a garda in Buncrana that attempts at investigating the incidents were to stop.