Derry Republicans remember Volunteer Joe Walker 50 years on

A ceremony commemorating the 50th anniversary of the death of IRA man Joe Walker took place at the Republican Monument in Creggan on Sunday.

The 18-year-old was killed by British troops at Central Drive when an army patrol opened fire on a car he was travelling in. Earlier, he had exchanged fire with another patrol at Westway. 

Two women and the driver of the car were also injured. It was reported at the time that he had fired up to 15 shots at the patrol with an armalite rifle.

Comrades of Óglach Joe Walker who were presented with bouquets of flowers.

Thousands of people attended his Requiem Mass at St Mary’s Church. He was buried in the City Cemetery.

After his death, the IRA released a statement claiming: “Retaliatory action will be taken to avenge this latest assault by the army on Irish people."

Delivering the oration on Sunday afternoon, Sinn Féin’s Mitchel McLaughlin said, at the time of his death IRA Volunteer Joe Walker had been looking forward to “opportunities in employment and getting on with life”.

“But it wasn’t to be,” said Mitchel, “because this was an unnatural society we all lived in.”

Creggan Republican Monument committee member Declan Moore makes a presentation to Liz & Teresa Walker at the 50th anniversary of their brother Óglach Joe Walker.

He said: “The Civil Rights Movement was entirely peaceful. It was a peace process, in fact, that was destroyed. It was completely rejected by the ruling Unionist Government in Stormont and by indifference and hostility from the British Government.

“And, had the simple, legitimate and reasonable demands of the Civil Rights Movement been addressed, we would not have monuments like this which list the names of Volunteers who died on active service and doesn’t list the many hundreds, thousands even of Volunteers who either survived or have died of natural causes in the meantime.

“It is out of that kind of rejection of peaceful opportunity and fair play that civil strife and struggle emerges. It is important to realise what radicalised a young man like Joe, that boy growing into manhood.

Amhrán na bhFiann sung by young Anaiah McLaughlin - the great niece of Volunteer Ethel Lynch.

“He was witnessing State tyranny . He was witnessing sectarianism. He saw people battened. In the year Joe was 13, Sammy Devenny was battered to death, was battered in his own home, as was his family, and died two months later. The first victim of the struggle that was to emerge, the first person to die as a result of the Troubles.”

The former Assembly Speaker said these deaths were the beginning of a “long journey of state violence, cover up, immunity, and perjured evidence used against Republicans to imprison them and to try and defeat the struggle”.

He said: “If we consider this day 50 years ago, Joe Walker and three other comrades went out to engage with the enemy.

“Did he just do that on a whim? He did not. He did it because he was motivated by his lived experience and what he knew was happening to Nationalism and Republicanism throughout the North.

“When he went out that day, it was after Motorman. The barricades were gone, the RUC had their Strand Road barracks and Ballykelly interrogation centre. The British army was ensconced in Piggery Ridge. They were in Essex factory where they had lookout posts. They were on Derry walls so they could dominate Southway, Blighs Lane, Westway - all the entrances into Creggan.

“They were on top of the Embassy building. They were on top of the Rossville Flats. They had permanent checkpoints on the Buncrana Road and the Culmore Road and on Craigavon Bridge. And they had covert observation posts on derelict buildings and in these communal flats, where they could get into the lofts without the residents being aware.

“All of that, if you consider it, should have made it impossible for the IRA to engage the enemy. But it didn’t and it couldn’t and it wouldn’t because it wasn’t just an IRA campaign. It was the rejection by the people of the type of society that couldn’t treat everyone with equality and dignity and decency.”

Wreath laid at Creggan Republican Monument in memory of Óglach Joe Walker on Sunday.

The former Foyle MLA reflected that Joe Walker could have been a citizen, “living a good life bringing up his own family, fulfilling his own kind of prospects”.

“But, Joe was denied that opportunity,” said Mitchel “and he didn’t contribute what he did out of any sense of bitterness. He did it because it was right to defend his people. And so did his comrades.

“Did he know and understand the dangers? A simple fact -  the day he died, the Derry Brigade had  already lost 13 volunteers on active service. So, every volunteer who went out knew the dangers, knew the possibilities, knew maybe even the probabilities.

“And, all those checkpoints, all those observation posts, all that electronic surveillance, all the helicopters, all the armoured cars could not stop the Republican people of Dery fighting back and eventually succeeding. 

“One by one the Brits were winkled out of the outposts they had established - the Gasyard which they couldn’t defend and had to fly in supplies and reinforcements because they couldn’t actually drive in and out. 

“Piggery Ridge is gone now and a fantastic GAA stadium and a thriving club has been established, which the people of Creggan and the young people of Creggan especially will enjoy for years to come. 

“That is the kind of transformation, the positive transformation, that was always possible but what had to happen in the first instance was that those who were afraid afraid to identify as Republicans and who got involved in diversions set for them by Unionist politicians and by the British Government eventually had to come around the table.”

He added: “We are now facing a different future and young people that I see in front of us, have a better chance than we ever had to do it on the basis of a delivery of the mandate for independence and self-determination, free from any external interference.

“Young people with the same kind of expectation and ambition that Joe Walker would have had this time 50 years ago will live that dream.

A section of the large gathering at the 50th anniversary of Óglach Joe Walker held at the Republican monument in Creggan.

“Anyone over the age of 18 living in this country today will live in a United Ireland and that, I think, would be the greatest monument to those republican IRA volunteers and their supporters and their support organisations.

“They delivered a democratic and peaceful future for all of us.”

Sunday’s commemoration was chaired by Sinn Féin councillor, Aisling Hutton. Cain O’Hagan from Ógra Shinn Féin read a poem and Pearse Óg McKeever sang two ballads. Amhrán na bhFiann was sung by young Anaiah McLaughlin - the great niece of Volunteer Ethel Lynch.