Member's statement: Clonoe Inquest Ruling

Member's statement by Mr Jonathan Buckley on 24 March 2025.

MLA

Mr Jonathan Buckley

Party at the time

Democratic Unionist Party

Date

24 March 2025

Type

Member's statement

Business

Members' Statements

Heading

Clonoe Inquest Ruling

Assembly identifier

Official Report component 4864554

Read the official Assembly record

Text

We were informed at the weekend that the Ministry of Defence plans to apply for a judicial review of the coroner's finding into the deaths of four Provisional IRA terrorists in their attack at Clonoe. I welcome the decision. The coroner's report found that the use of lethal force by the SAS cannot have been reasonable. That decision bewildered citizens with any degree of common sense. It infuriated our veterans community and angered genuine victims of the Northern Ireland Troubles; they see it as another attempt — in this instance, by the courts — to rewrite the narrative of what happened in Northern Ireland's troubled past. Let us set out the context: 10 heavily armed IRA men, with an anti-aircraft gun strapped to the back of a lorry, alongside AK-47s, opened up on a police station, travelled down the road and open fire again in the air, and were then met by the SAS in the Clonoe church car park. That is the reality of what happened. A coroner's report has the ability to look into who, what, where and when, but it has no ability to take into context the "why". It is the "why" that I focus my remarks on. Why did the SAS open fire on those terrorists? It did so because it was protecting life and property. I listened to Francie Molloy, the Sinn Féin former Member for Mid Ulster, on the radio this morning talking about rules of engagement, war scenarios and the failure to save life. Could it get any more rich? What did those men set out to do? It was to murder and take life. How many lives had they taken before, and how many would they have taken afterwards? People often ask whether those soldiers felt that their lives were threatened. Let us look at a similar scenario: two and a half years previously, in October 1989, a 25-year-old constable, Michael Marshall, was assassinated in a very similar style of encounter near Bessbrook. His armoured police car was overtaken by a flatbed lorry with a machine gun styled the same as that at Clonoe, which killed him. His colleague, who was left seriously injured, said:

"The gunfire was still continuing and I was aware of being hit in the legs. I was convinced that I was going to die".

When the shooting stopped, he saw Constable Marshall —

— lying slumped in the blazing car. Those were the actions —

— and the consequences must be taken into account. They were murderers.

421 words. Text as published by the Northern Ireland Assembly.

Assessment

Flagged Legacy of the Troubles, victims and paramilitarism

Second assessment

Jev’s answers did not settle this record, so a second model, claude-opus-5-5, read the same text (without the MLA’s name or party) and gave its reasons on 23 October 2026. How the second assessment works

Verdict

Flagged

Public interest or divisiveness

Mixed

Against the published rubric

The statement welcomes a judicial review of an inquest finding and gives factual context about the Clonoe attack, but its main thrust is defending one account of the Troubles against another. It describes the coroner's finding as an attempt to "rewrite the narrative" and sets "genuine victims" against those whose deaths were examined, a familiar hierarchy-of-victims framing on the legacy flashpoint. It also mocks a named former member of an opposing party ("Could it get any more rich?"). It does not engage with the legal reasoning of the finding, so it meets the rubric's tests for adopting a communal framing and point-scoring on legacy.

Public interest or divisiveness

Commenting on a significant inquest ruling and a government decision to challenge it is a legitimate subject, and the statement does describe the armed attack that preceded the shooting. Much of it, however, works to register grievance at the courts and to score a point against a republican opponent rather than to examine the ruling's findings on lethal force. Phrases such as "genuine victims" also deepen the contest over whose dead and whose account count. Both elements are substantial, so the effect is mixed.

Jev’s structured answers

Assessed 21 October 2026 at 12:10 UTC by jev-1.13.0 (requested as typesafe/jev) under rubric 2026.10-r9, methodology 1.9.

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