Guns, grenades and lynchings: Revisiting the funeral murders
A new documentary examines the savage 1988 killings that brought the North to the brink
The car containing two British army corporals, Derek Wood and David Howes, as it drove into a funeral cortege in west Belfast in 1988.
Thirty years ago today in Belfast a silver car reversed at speed into the republican funeral cortege of an IRA volunteer, Caoimhín Mac Brádaigh, also known as Kevin Brady. What followed in the next 20 minutes was so harrowing, there were fears it might tip Northern Ireland into civil war.
The car contained two British army corporals, Derek Wood and David Howes. Republicans were convinced it was a loyalist attack – a repeat of a grenade and gun attack by a loyalist in Milltown Cemetery three days earlier that killed Mac Brádaigh.