Patrick Rooney

 

August 14, 1969 in Belfast, Northern Ireland a 9 year old Catholic Boy, Patrick Rooney, was killed in his bedroom by the Royal Ulster Constabulary – RUC -  (the Pro-Protestant Police Force of Northern Ireland at the time.)

From August 12-16, 1969 Northern Irish Protestants went across Northern Ireland burning Norther Irish Catholic Homes and Businesses – hoping to force them to move to the Republic of Ireland.

1,505 Northern Irish Catholic Families had their homes bombed and were forced to leave their neighborhoods.

While Patrick and his Family of 8 huddled in their house against the violence outside the RUC fired bullets at their house.

Patrick Rooney was the first Child murdered during The Troubles (1969-1998.)

From 1969 until 2018 the RUC, the British Military and the London Government did whatever it could to blame the Catholic Victims for their own Deaths and Woundings – including hiding evidence and giving Awards to those who Shot the Victims.

The 2018 Scarman Report found that there had been no justification for the firing which killed Patrick.

The Police Ombudsman also stated the use of machine guns by Officers to deal with rioting in Belfast in 1969 was "disproportionate and dangerous".

As with most Cases involving the RUC and the British Military in Northern Ireland - no Former Officers were brought to justice for their crime of killing 9 year old Patrick Rooney.

Background: In 1922 the UK broke-up a united Ireland and created Northern Ireland (and along with it the official 3 Tier Discrimination Policy: British (English, Welsh and Scots) at the top, Northern Irish Protestants in the middle and Northern Irish Catholics at the bottom.

Catholics in Northern Ireland did not receive the same equal and basic Civil Rights that every other citizen of the UK held until the Good Friday Agreement of 1998 (77 years after N.I. was created) that ended the 30 Year violence that was The Troubles.

The Troubles started when Northern Irish Catholics peacefully started using civil disobedience (following Martin Luther King's example in the US) in 1966. The Northern Irish Protestants did not want to give up what little power the British gave them and so attacked and killed the Northern Irish Catholics (the same way American White Southerners did to American Black Southerners in the 1950s-1960s.)

The British sent in their Military in 1969 and at first the Northern Irish Catholics saw the British Military as a buffer between them and the Protestants and welcomed them (Northern Irish Catholics hoped the British Government and the British Military would be like the American Federal Government and the Federalized National Guard who went into the American South and stopped the White Southern Racists and the violence.)

That support changed after the British Military openly sided with the Northern Irish Protestants and started massacring unarmed and peaceful Northern Irish Catholics (ie. The 1970 Falls Curfew, the 1971 Ballymurphy Massacre, the 1972 Bloody Sunday, etc.)

After Bloody Sunday, the Northern Irish Catholics and the world had direct proof that the British Government and Military fully supported the Northern Irish Protestants and sought to keep the Northern Irish Catholics “in-their-place” through any means  - including murder. The British Government and the British Military covered-up and lied about their role for decades, but have since openly admitted their crimes.

From 1972 until 1998 it was open-warfare with the British Government, the British Military, the Police and the Northern Irish Protestants on one side and the Northern Irish Catholics on the other. The death and violence hit not only Northern Ireland, but the Republic of Ireland, the United Kingdom, Belgium, West Germany, Gibraltar, the Netherlands, Germany, etc.

The Troubles only ended when the United States stepped-in to get all the sides together (the same way we did in the Former Yugoslavia around the same time.) 1,935 civilians were killed and over 50,000 wounded, injured or permanently disabled.

The Pro-Protestant and Anti-Catholic Royal Ulster Constabulary was replaced by the Police Service of Northern Ireland in 2001.