Seán Murray’s Unquiet Graves has its Belfast premiere last night at the Movie House on Dublin Road, prior to its release across Northern Ireland. Directed by documentarian and narrated by Oscar-nominated actor Stephen Rea, the film tells the story of the Glenanne Gang, the group of killers who rampaged through Counties Tyrone and Armagh and the Irish Republic in a campaign that lasted from July 1972 to the end of 1978.
The Glenanne gang included members of the RUC and the UDR and carried out most of its fatal attacks in an area which is now known as the murder triangle. Through interviews with the families of victims and those directly impacted, Murray tells the shocking story of the active role of the “significant number” of state security forces in the murder of innocent civilians including the Dublin and Monaghan bombings.
“This documentary is the result of four years of work and it’s an attempt to give those people who have been victims of collusion between the state and loyalist paramilitaries the opportunity to tell their story.”
“Unfortunately, we couldn’t tell the story of every single one of the more than 120 people murdered by the Glenanne gang, but what I’ve tried to do is illustrate how this was clearly not a case of ‘a few bad apples’.”
“By far, the most chilling part of creating this documentary was speaking to John Weir in South Africa. As a former member of the RUC who admitted to being in the Glenanne gang, his claim that the British military intelligence tried to arrange for loyalist paramilitaries to attack a primary school is shocking.”
“Collusion has left a dark and terrible stain on the North of Ireland, the pain that’s been caused to thousands of people here is incredible. If there is ever going to be a healing process on this island, if we’re ever going to move forward in reconciliation, people need to be able to tell their stories, but more importantly we need truth from the state about their role in the conflict.”
“The foregrounding of the personal cost to the horrors of our past offers an empowering voice to victims, one that holds no political authority but can be seen as both redressing the past for some and rebalancing a new historical understanding of the conflict”.
Seán Murray, Director of Unquiet Graves
The film will be showing at the Queen’s Film Theatre from Friday 01 March until Thursday 07 March. The 6 pm screening on Thursday 07 March will be followed by a Q&A with film’s director.