merrion street

Taoiseach Enda Kenny today met with family members of ten Protestant workmen killed in the 1976 Kingsmill massacre in South Armagh. The sole survivor of the shooting Mr. Alan Black also attended the meeting.

The families who were accompanied to the meeting by the Northern Ireland Executive Minister Danny Kennedy, MLA met the Taoiseach for over an hour of discussions in Government Buildings.

It was the first time that this group had met with a serving Taoiseach.

Today’s meeting is one of a number of meetings that the Taoiseach will be holding with victims’ families on all sides.

The Taoiseach said

I invited the families to meet me to hear at firsthand how their lives had been affected by one of the worst atrocities from the troubles, the Kingsmills massacre.

I expressed my deep sympathy with the families for the indescribable loss they have suffered.

I assured them that there is no hierarchy of victims, and that their concerns are every bit as important to me as the concerns of other victims and their families.

I told them that the IRA was the common enemy of all of the people of Ireland, of all traditions, North and South, and that their campaign of violence was strongly resisted by successive Irish governments.

I promised the families that I would reflect carefully on what they told me this afternoon.