Member's statement: Ivan Hillen: 40th Anniversary
Member's statement by Lord Elliott on .
- MLA
- Lord Elliott
- Party at the time
- Ulster Unionist Party
- Date
- 13 May 2024
- Type
- Member's statement
- Business
- Members' Statements
- Heading
- Ivan Hillen: 40th Anniversary
- Assembly identifier
- Official Report component 4488545
Read the official Assembly record
Text
I put on record my commiserations to the Hillen family. I was at the 40th anniversary service for Mr Ivan Hillen yesterday. Ivan was murdered 40 years ago to the day yesterday, just outside Augher. The service was in Ballygawley and Ballyreagh Presbyterian Church. The deputy First Minister also attended the service. Ivan was a farmer and was out tending to his livestock on the morning that the IRA came and cowardly murdered him. His murderers then ran across the nearby border to the Republic of Ireland and went into hiding. Mr Hillen was a community activist. He worked for many local farmers, helping and assisting his neighbours. He was also a member of the Ulster Unionist Party and a delegate of the party's south Tyrone association. My commiserations to Ivan's late wife, his son and the rest of the family, who were there yesterday. At the very moving service, the life of Ivan was recalled. Yesterday also marked 47 years since Douglas Deering was murdered in the village of Rosslea. His was the last business in Rosslea to be owned by a Protestant. In the decades leading up to that, there were at least five businesses in Rosslea that were owned by Protestant people, all of whom were forced out by the IRA's ethnic cleansing of that community. There was also a controlled school in the village that was bombed. That basically eradicated the Protestant community from Rosslea. Those were terrible deeds and terrible times, and there has been no apology for any of it. Nobody from the republican movement has shown any remorse for those crimes and cowardly, brutal murders.
272 words. Text as published by the Northern Ireland Assembly.
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