Two officers of the Garda Síochána, the police force of the Ireland, were shot and killed on July 7 1980 by alleged members of the Irish National Liberation Army (INLA) during a pursuit in the aftermath of a bank robbery near Loughglynn, County Roscommon. The officers' deaths provoked a national outrage. Three men were apprehended, convicted and sentenced to death for capital murder. Two of the sentences were later reduced to 40 years imprisonment while the third was overturned.
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On July 7 1980 three armed and masked men raided the Bank of Ireland in Ballaghaderreen, County Roscommon. The group held staff and customers at gunpoint before leaving with £35,000 pounds. Gardaí of the Irish national 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 with four Gardaí, including Detective John Morley, who was armed with an Uzi machine gun. The two cars collided at Aghaderry. One of the raiders jumped out of the Cortina and sprayed the patrol car with bullets, killing Garda Officer Henry Byrne.
One man left the Cortina and ran off while his two accomplices - wearing balaclavas - ran in the opposite direction. There was an exchange of shots in which Morley is believed to have wounded one of the men, but he himself was fatally wounded. Both of these men were later apprehended, while a third man was apprehended in the city of Galway almost two weeks later.
John Francis Morley, born 1942 in Knock, County Mayo, was a Garda Síochána detective. Morley was married with two sons, Shane and Gordon and a daughter, Gillian. Morley had also been a noted Gaelic footballer and was considered one of the best centre backs in the history of Connacht football. He played 112 league and championship games for Mayo between 1961-1974.[2][3]
Henry Byrne, born 1950 in Knock, County Mayo, was a police officer. Byrne was married with two children and his wife was pregnant with a third at the time of his death.
The event was considered a national tragedy in Ireland.[4][5] Byrne and Morley were the fifth and sixth Gardaí officers to die in the Troubles, and the 21st and 22nd Gardaí to die violently since the foundation of the state in 1922.
The three men apprehended were Peter Pringle, Patrick McCann, and Colm O'Shea.[6] Because a portion of funding for the Irish National Liberation Army (INLA), a Republican paramilitary organization, came from bank robberies, the three robbery suspects were identified as being associated with the INLA. This claim was disputed by advocates for the Irish Republican Socialist Party, the INLA's political wing, who stated that only one of the men (Pringle) had had a peripheral connection with the Irish Republican organization some years earlier.[7]
All three men were found guilty of murder and sentenced to death. The sentences were later reduced to 40 years imprisonment with no chance of parole. Pringle's conviction was overturned in 1995 after serving 15 years.[8] As of February 2008, McCann and O'Shea were still serving their sentences in Portlaoise Prison.[9]
Morley and Byrne were posthumously awarded the Scott Medal for their actions. The medals were presented to their families at a special ceremony in Templemore in 1982.[10]
The events of that day are recalled in an episode of the RTÉ One programme Garda ar Lár.[1]