2 weeks Ago
Innocent man paralysed by loyalist death squad relives night of horrific attack Paul Gallagher in his west Belfast home this week – the same home he was shot in 30 years ago The recent death of UFF hitman Gary ‘Smickers’ Smith triggered a series of flashbacks for Paul Gallagher over a loyalist gun attack on his family home, the Sunday World has learned. Today Paul is a well-known member of the Wave Trauma Centre team which provides care and support for anyone bereaved or injured through the Troubles. And he is also a highly qualified expert in the field of human trauma and finding ways of coping with it.
The west Belfast man was just 21 when, three decades ago, a heavily armed unit from Johnny ‘Mad Dog’ Adair’s notorious ‘C Coy’ death squad burst into his parents’ terrace property in Lenadoon. The house takeover – which left the Gallagher family in a state of shock and fear – was part of a planned UFF operation to kill a neighbour who was alleged to have been a Sinn Féin member. After an hour, the murder plan was called off when the intended target failed to show up.
But, before the intruders left, the lead gunman pointed his high-powered automatic rifle at Paul and pulled the trigger. Paul believes the attack wasn’t aimed at him personally, but more a case of the terror gang engaging the sick loyalist mantra of ‘Yabba dabba do, any Taig will do’. Horrendous injuries left Paul paralysed from the waist down and, as a result, he is permanently confined to a wheelchair.
And in a wide-ranging exchange with the Sunday World this week, Paul wondered if Gary ‘Smickers’ Smith had been the lead UFF gunman who had forced his way into his home, claiming to be from the IRA. The attack on the Gallagher home happened in January 1994, a matter of months before the republican and loyalist ceasefires. And this week, using a range of sources, we were able to establish Gary Smith wasn’t the gunman who shot Paul.
As far as we had been able to ascertain, the shooter was in fact Sam ‘Skelly’ McCrory, a veteran ‘C Coy’ killer who died two years ago and was of a similar build to Smith. Hitman Sam ‘Skelly’ McCrory who shot Paul Gallagher But Paul also voiced concerns over an item in the book Mad Dog – written by this reporter – where one of the gang who had been present in the Gallagher home is quoted as saying that, before they left, Paul told them: “I’m one of yous’uns.” Paul said this week: “I never said that.
It’s just not true. And if I had been asked what happened, I could have explained that.” He said: “Ever since I’ve been fully aware of my truth about what happened.
And I was aware of their mantra ‘any Taig will do’ and therefore, I knew it was unlikely they would leave our home without shooting somebody. “As it turned out, I was just the one they were going to shoot going out the door. I could rationalise that.
I could rationalise that it was nothing personal. I just happened to be there. “I was just another part of the sectarian conflict we were all involved in and I was just another victim of that.
Gary ‘Smickers’ Smith “But when I came across this Mad Dog book, I was flicking through it and I saw my address. It said that when they were going out the door, I said to them ‘I’m one of yous’uns’. It gave them impression that I was saying to them, I was with them.
They had said they were the IRA when they came in and we assumed they were the IRA and we didn’t know anything else. “But for me to have allegedly said, ‘I’m one of yous’uns’. And then for the loyalists claim, ‘That’s why we shot him’.
I didn’t say it and I want everyone to know it. This also attacked my identity of whom I knew I was. “I felt dehumanised.
Over the years I meet people and they ask what happened to me. And when I say I was shot, you can see them wondering if was I involved in something. You can see them thinking, ‘He must have been a bad boy for that to happen’.
“But to see it written in black and white. I wondered, why would the journalists take their word? Why didn’t they come to me? “What they said was lies. It was said to justify what they did as though it was some sort of great event.
The fact that the journalists took their word and didn’t come to me, got to me. “I thought if people come along and read this [loyalist gunman’s claims] and they’d maybe wonder, ‘Maybe he was in the IRA and deserved it’,” said Paul. And he emphasised: “I did not utter those words in this house and I did not, as they claimed, ‘mouth off’.
” Paul Gallagher also recalled the fear his family was forced to endure at the hands of the UFF team who entered their home. “They had all the power. They had the guns.
We were just waiting for them to leave. We didn’t know why they were in our home. “There modus operandi was to shoot as many young Catholics as possible and they produced T-shirts and posters with ‘Yabba dabba do, any Taig will do’.
It was to instil fear in the community. Paul Gallagher as a youth before he was attacked “Anyone was a target at any time. I could live with that.
But what I could not live with was for them to blacken my name for something I never said,” said Paul. Paul, who is now married, also explained his work as a councillor with the Wave Trauma Centre has helped him to come to terms with what happened to him and his family all those years ago. “When I started, I knew little or nothing about trauma.
But I went on courses and I could identify with what I learned. I could feel the hairs on the back of my neck and the butterflies in my stomach. “But it’s not all negative.
It’s positive as well. It’s about taking back control and it set me on a new path. “I went on to do a degree and a PhD and now I’m part of the Wave Trauma Education team.
I can now teach people who were just like me 15 years ago. “I watch people learning from my story and see them beginning a whole new journey. I meet people who went through things 50 years ago, but they are now coming for the first time in a positive way for them,” he said.
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