Seán Savage
Encyclopedia
Seán Savage (26 January 1965, Belfast
– 6 March 1988, Gibraltar
) was a volunteer
of the Provisional IRA
who was shot and killed by British Army
Special Air Service
(SAS) soldiers in Operation Flavius
.
family in the Kashmir area of Belfast
, Savage was educated at primary level at St. Gall's Primary School and later at St. Paul's Secondary School in the Falls Road area of West Belfast
.
(RUC), in 1987 Savage and Daniel McCann
shot two Special Branch officers dead in Belfast docks. Savage was the leader of the IRA unit that placed a booby-trap bomb underneath the car of senior Ulster Defence Association
(UDA) member John McMichael
outside his Lisburn
home in December 1987. McMichael, who was the UDA's Deputy Commander and leader of its South Belfast Brigade, died of his injuries two hours after the blast. In March 1988, Savage and McCann, along with Mairead Farrell
, were sent to the British overseas territory
of Gibraltar
to plant a bomb in the town area targeting the British military band which paraded weekly in connection with the changing of the guard in front of the Governors' residence
(see Operation Flavius
).
Savage was shot dead, along with Farrell and McCann, by the SAS whilst walking unarmed towards the frontier with Spain, at the Winston Churchill Avenue Shell filling station. Seán Savage, who was following behind the others, tried to escape, only to be killed under a beech tree at Smith Dorrien
Avenue. He was shot 16 to 18 times. Several witnesses to the shooting alleged that Farrell and McCann were both shot while attempting to surrender and while lying wounded on the ground. British officers said the trio were acting suspiciously and that the officers who carried out the shootings believed their lives to be in danger.
No radio or other detonating device were found on the bodies, nor was there any bomb in the car in Gibraltar which had been identified as belonging to the bombing team. A car used by the bombers in Spain was found two days after the killings containing 140 lb (63.5 kg) of Semtex
with a device timed to go off during the changing of the guard.
, west Belfast and attended by many people including Sinn Féin
politicians Gerry Adams
and Martin McGuiness. As the coffins were being lowered into the ground, three mourners (including one IRA member) were killed in a gun and grenade attack launched by loyalist Michael Stone
in what became known as the "Milltown Massacre
".
ruled that the human rights of the three were infringed, and criticized the British authorities for lack of control in the arrest operation. They also ruled that the three had been engaged in an act of terrorism
, and consequently dismissed unanimously the applicants’ claims for damages, for costs and expenses incurred in the Gibraltar Inquest and the remainder of the claims for just satisfaction.
A controversial British television documentary, Death on the Rock
was produced about the events surrounding Savage's death.
Belfast
Belfast is the capital of and largest city in Northern Ireland. By population, it is the 14th biggest city in the United Kingdom and second biggest on the island of Ireland . It is the seat of the devolved government and legislative Northern Ireland Assembly...
– 6 March 1988, Gibraltar
Gibraltar
Gibraltar is a British overseas territory located on the southern end of the Iberian Peninsula at the entrance of the Mediterranean. A peninsula with an area of , it has a northern border with Andalusia, Spain. The Rock of Gibraltar is the major landmark of the region...
) was a volunteer
Volunteer (Irish republican)
Volunteer, often abbreviated Vol., is a term used by a number of Irish republican paramilitary organisations to describe their members. Among these have been the various forms of the Irish Republican Army and the Irish National Liberation Army...
of the Provisional IRA
Provisional Irish Republican Army
The Provisional Irish Republican Army is an Irish republican paramilitary organisation whose aim was to remove Northern Ireland from the United Kingdom and bring about a socialist republic within a united Ireland by force of arms and political persuasion...
who was shot and killed by British Army
British Army
The British Army is the land warfare branch of Her Majesty's Armed Forces in the United Kingdom. It came into being with the unification of the Kingdom of England and Scotland into the Kingdom of Great Britain in 1707. The new British Army incorporated Regiments that had already existed in England...
Special Air Service
Special Air Service
Special Air Service or SAS is a corps of the British Army constituted on 31 May 1950. They are part of the United Kingdom Special Forces and have served as a model for the special forces of many other countries all over the world...
(SAS) soldiers in Operation Flavius
Operation Flavius
Operation Flavius was the name given to an operation by a Special Air Service team in Gibraltar on 6 March 1988 tasked to prevent a Provisional Irish Republican Army bomb attack...
.
Early life
Born to a republicanIrish Republicanism
Irish republicanism is an ideology based on the belief that all of Ireland should be an independent republic.In 1801, under the Act of Union, the Kingdom of Great Britain and the Kingdom of Ireland merged to form the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland...
family in the Kashmir area of Belfast
Belfast
Belfast is the capital of and largest city in Northern Ireland. By population, it is the 14th biggest city in the United Kingdom and second biggest on the island of Ireland . It is the seat of the devolved government and legislative Northern Ireland Assembly...
, Savage was educated at primary level at St. Gall's Primary School and later at St. Paul's Secondary School in the Falls Road area of West Belfast
Belfast
Belfast is the capital of and largest city in Northern Ireland. By population, it is the 14th biggest city in the United Kingdom and second biggest on the island of Ireland . It is the seat of the devolved government and legislative Northern Ireland Assembly...
.
Active service
According to the Royal Ulster ConstabularyRoyal Ulster Constabulary
The Royal Ulster Constabulary was the name of the police force in Northern Ireland from 1922 to 2000. Following the awarding of the George Cross in 2000, it was subsequently known as the Royal Ulster Constabulary GC. It was founded on 1 June 1922 out of the Royal Irish Constabulary...
(RUC), in 1987 Savage and Daniel McCann
Daniel McCann
Daniel "Danny" McCann was a volunteer in the Provisional Irish Republican Army who was killed by British Army Special Air Service soldiers in Operation Flavius.-Background:...
shot two Special Branch officers dead in Belfast docks. Savage was the leader of the IRA unit that placed a booby-trap bomb underneath the car of senior Ulster Defence Association
Ulster Defence Association
The Ulster Defence Association is the largest although not the deadliest loyalist paramilitary and vigilante group in Northern Ireland. It was formed in September 1971 and undertook a campaign of almost twenty-four years during "The Troubles"...
(UDA) member John McMichael
John McMichael
John "Big John" McMichael was a leading Northern Irish loyalist who rose to become the most prominent figure within the Ulster Defence Association as the Deputy Commander and leader of its South Belfast Brigade. He was also commander of the organisation's cover name, the "Ulster Freedom Fighters"...
outside his Lisburn
Lisburn
DemographicsLisburn Urban Area is within Belfast Metropolitan Urban Area and is classified as a Large Town by the . On census day there were 71,465 people living in Lisburn...
home in December 1987. McMichael, who was the UDA's Deputy Commander and leader of its South Belfast Brigade, died of his injuries two hours after the blast. In March 1988, Savage and McCann, along with Mairead Farrell
Mairéad Farrell
Mairéad Farrell was an Irish volunteer of the Provisional Irish Republican Army . She was killed by SAS soldiers during Operation Flavius, a British Army operation to prevent a bombing in Gibraltar.-Early life:...
, were sent to the British overseas territory
British overseas territories
The British Overseas Territories are fourteen territories of the United Kingdom which, although they do not form part of the United Kingdom itself, fall under its jurisdiction. They are remnants of the British Empire that have not acquired independence or have voted to remain British territories...
of Gibraltar
Gibraltar
Gibraltar is a British overseas territory located on the southern end of the Iberian Peninsula at the entrance of the Mediterranean. A peninsula with an area of , it has a northern border with Andalusia, Spain. The Rock of Gibraltar is the major landmark of the region...
to plant a bomb in the town area targeting the British military band which paraded weekly in connection with the changing of the guard in front of the Governors' residence
The Convent (Gibraltar)
The Convent has been the official residence of the Governor of Gibraltar since 1728. It was originally a convent of Franciscan friars, hence its name, and was completed in 1531....
(see Operation Flavius
Operation Flavius
Operation Flavius was the name given to an operation by a Special Air Service team in Gibraltar on 6 March 1988 tasked to prevent a Provisional Irish Republican Army bomb attack...
).
Savage was shot dead, along with Farrell and McCann, by the SAS whilst walking unarmed towards the frontier with Spain, at the Winston Churchill Avenue Shell filling station. Seán Savage, who was following behind the others, tried to escape, only to be killed under a beech tree at Smith Dorrien
Horace Smith-Dorrien
General Sir Horace Lockwood Smith-Dorrien GCB, GCMG, DSO, ADC was a British soldier and commander of the British II Corps and Second Army of the BEF during World War I.-Early life and career:...
Avenue. He was shot 16 to 18 times. Several witnesses to the shooting alleged that Farrell and McCann were both shot while attempting to surrender and while lying wounded on the ground. British officers said the trio were acting suspiciously and that the officers who carried out the shootings believed their lives to be in danger.
No radio or other detonating device were found on the bodies, nor was there any bomb in the car in Gibraltar which had been identified as belonging to the bombing team. A car used by the bombers in Spain was found two days after the killings containing 140 lb (63.5 kg) of Semtex
Semtex
Semtex is a general-purpose plastic explosive containing RDX and PETN. It is used in commercial blasting, demolition, and in certain military applications. Semtex became notoriously popular with terrorists because it was, until recently, extremely difficult to detect, as in the case of Pan Am...
with a device timed to go off during the changing of the guard.
Funeral
The funeral of Savage, Farrell and McCann was held on 16 March 1988 in the Milltown CemeteryMilltown Cemetery
Milltown Cemetery is a large cemetery in west Belfast, Northern Ireland.It lies within the townland of Ballymurphy, between Falls Road and the M1 motorway. Milltown Cemetery opened in 1869 and there are now approximately 200,000 of Belfast's citizens buried there. Most of those buried there are...
, west Belfast and attended by many people including Sinn Féin
Sinn Féin
Sinn Féin is a left wing, Irish republican political party in Ireland. The name is Irish for "ourselves" or "we ourselves", although it is frequently mistranslated as "ourselves alone". Originating in the Sinn Féin organisation founded in 1905 by Arthur Griffith, it took its current form in 1970...
politicians Gerry Adams
Gerry Adams
Gerry Adams is an Irish republican politician and Teachta Dála for the constituency of Louth. From 1983 to 1992 and from 1997 to 2011, he was an abstentionist Westminster Member of Parliament for Belfast West. He is the president of Sinn Féin, the second largest political party in Northern...
and Martin McGuiness. As the coffins were being lowered into the ground, three mourners (including one IRA member) were killed in a gun and grenade attack launched by loyalist Michael Stone
Michael Stone (loyalist paramilitary)
Michael Stone is a Northern Irish loyalist who was a volunteer in the Ulster Defence Association . Stone was born in England but raised in the Braniel estate in East Belfast, Northern Ireland. Convicted of killing three people and injuring more than sixty in an attack on mourners at Milltown...
in what became known as the "Milltown Massacre
Milltown Cemetery attack
The Milltown Cemetery attack The Milltown Cemetery attack The Milltown Cemetery attack (also known as the Milltown Cemetery killings or Milltown Massacre took place on 16 March 1988 in Belfast's Milltown Cemetery...
".
Reaction
An inquest into the deaths concluded the three had been lawfully killed. In 1995, the European Court of Human RightsEuropean Court of Human Rights
The European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg is a supra-national court established by the European Convention on Human Rights and hears complaints that a contracting state has violated the human rights enshrined in the Convention and its protocols. Complaints can be brought by individuals or...
ruled that the human rights of the three were infringed, and criticized the British authorities for lack of control in the arrest operation. They also ruled that the three had been engaged in an act of terrorism
Terrorism
Terrorism is the systematic use of terror, especially as a means of coercion. In the international community, however, terrorism has no universally agreed, legally binding, criminal law definition...
, and consequently dismissed unanimously the applicants’ claims for damages, for costs and expenses incurred in the Gibraltar Inquest and the remainder of the claims for just satisfaction.
A controversial British television documentary, Death on the Rock
Death on the Rock
Death on the Rock is a British Academy Television Award-winning episode of Thames Television's current affairs series This Week, first aired by the British television network ITV on 28 April 1988. On 6 March 1988, three Irish Republican Army members, Danny McCann, Sean Savage and Mairéad Farrell,...
was produced about the events surrounding Savage's death.
Further reading
- Death on the Rock - documentary about the shootings.
- Murder on the Rock - book about the shootings.
- Relatives for Justice Site.
- Adams, GGerry AdamsGerry Adams is an Irish republican politician and Teachta Dála for the constituency of Louth. From 1983 to 1992 and from 1997 to 2011, he was an abstentionist Westminster Member of Parliament for Belfast West. He is the president of Sinn Féin, the second largest political party in Northern...
, Hope and History: Making Peace in Ireland, Brandon Books, 2003. ISBN 0863223303