This month, Northern Ireland’s courts may deliver long-awaited answers — and perhaps accountability — for survivors and bereaved families of the conflict from 1969 to 1998.
Over those three decades, U.K. security forces, republican and loyalist paramilitaries killed more than 3,500 people, injuring and torturing many more. Although the 1998 Good Friday Agreement ended 30 years of large-scale violence, it failed to provide effective paths for truth and accountability. Many families have spent nearly half a century campaigning for justice as a result.
A patchwork of inquiries, police investigations, and inquests has yielded only limited progress so far. However, some of the most significant cases are now up before the courts.
On Sept. 10, Belfast’s Court of Appeal will hear the case of Patrick Laurence O’Neill, who was convicted in 1972 and sentenced to 15 years on explosives and ammunition charges. In April this year, the U.K.’s Criminal Cases Review Commission referred his case for appeal, concluding there is a “real possibility” the convictions will not stand. Central to that referral is evidence that O’Neill’s confession was extracted under torture, including findings from Bitter Legacy, a report co-authored by Human Rights First and a panel of international experts convened by the Norwegian Centre for Human Rights. (Full disclosure: One of this article’s co-authors contributed to the report.) The Court of Appeal will now decide whether O’Neill’s half-century-old convictions should be overturned.
Five days later, on Sept. 15, the trial of a former British paratrooper known as “Soldier F” will open in Derry. He faces charges for the murders of William McKinney and James Wray, as well as the attempted murders of five others, during the Bloody Sunday massacre of Jan. 30, 1972. On that day, British soldiers opened fire on unarmed civil rights demonstrators, killing 13 people and wounding 15 more, one of whom later died. Decades later, the British government admitted the shootings were unjustified and issued a public apology, but so far no one has been held criminally accountable.
Solider F’s prosecution has been repeatedly delayed. In 2019, prosecutors said there was enough evidence to proceed. Two years later, the case was dropped after the collapse of a separate veteran’s trial. In 2022, following a legal challenge by one of the victim’s families, the Court of Appeal overturned that decision and reinstated the case. When the trial begins next month, Soldier F will not be required to attend.
For the Bloody Sunday families, five decades of campaigning have culminated in this single case — one soldier on trial. It is not the full measure of justice they have demanded, but it may finally bring a measure of truth.
Also expected this month is a verdict in the coroner’s inquest into the Springhill/Westrock massacre in Belfast. The inquest, which concluded in May 2024, examined the 1972 killings of five people shot dead by British soldiers — three children, a father of six, and a priest. After years of campaigning and delays, the families stood and applauded as the inquest proceedings closed, describing it as a moment of recognition after more than five decades of waiting.
These cases are unfolding in the context of a political fight that is also set to intensify in the coming weeks. The Labour government, elected last year, promised to repeal the Legacy Act on Northern Ireland, which was pushed by the Conservative party and sought to shut down inquests and court cases, replacing them with a truth-telling commission controlled by the government. Now, facing opposition from military veterans’ groups who argue repeal would expose former soldiers to prosecution, the government is suggesting a “reform” rather than repeal.
The law is opposed by every political party in Northern Ireland, the Irish government, bereaved families, local human rights groups, the United Nations and Council of Europe because it shields perpetrators and frustrates families searching for accountability. The struggle to reform or repeal the act will reignite now that the British Parliament has reconvened.
Meanwhile, some families have made incremental progress through the existing system. The family of Patrick McVeigh — a father of six who was shot dead on the street by an undercover British military unit — is awaiting a court date for the trial of a former British soldier charged with his 1972 murder in Belfast. Several other former soldiers are charged in the same trial with attempted murder.
More than three decades after loyalist paramilitaries murdered Belfast human rights lawyer Pat Finucane, in his home and in front of his young family, a full public inquiry is finally set to begin. Multiple official reviews have already confirmed that the killers were linked to British security forces, but the full truth has never been made public. Alongside the Finucane family and others, Human Rights First has advocated for the inquiry for many years, and arrangements have finally begun. Sir Gary Hickinbottom, a retired Court of Appeal judge, has been appointed as Chair. He is joined by Baroness Nuala O’Loan and Francesca Del Mese as independent assessors. With full powers to compel evidence and summon witnesses, the inquiry represents the most serious effort yet to uncover the extent of state collusion in Finucane’s murder.
Meanwhile the U.K. Supreme Court is considering the murder of Sean Brown. In May 1997, Brown was abducted by loyalist paramilitaries after he locked the gates of the local sports club in Bellaghy. Intelligence later identified more than 25 suspects, including alleged state agents, but again no one was ever prosecuted.
Earlier this year, an inquest collapsed after the coroner ruled that national security restrictions imposed by the British state made a public inquiry the only viable route. The Court of Appeal upheld a High Court finding that the government’s refusal to hold a public inquiry was unlawful and “cannot stand.” The government has appealed and the issue now rests with the Supreme Court. A verdict is expected in the coming months.
From Laurence O’Neill — tortured into confession just two years into the conflict — to Sean Brown — murdered less than a year before it ended — the British justice system has failed hundreds of survivors and the victims’ families. September could finally provide some of them with answers.
