Donegal County Council hosted a lecture last weekend in honour of Eddie Fullerton to mark the 25th anniversary of the assassination of the much loved Inishowen councillor.
Gortahork man James Woods attended the Eddie Fullerton Memorial Lecture last Saturday, and shared his poignant account of the lecture with Donegal Daily…
“I was fortunate enough to be able to attend the Eddie Fullerton Memorial Lecture in the Inishowen Gateway Hotel on Sat 27th august 2016. For those who are not aware of who Eddie Fullerton was, He was a Sinn Fein County Councillor who was murdered in his home in Cockhill, Buncrana, Co. Donegal on the 25th May 1991.”
“The significance of this atrocity being carried out, is that his death was attributed to agents working on behalf of the British states security apparatus, who travelled into a different jurisdiction unhindered, and gunned down a public representative who was a threat to no-one, accessible and approachable to everyone, in front of his wife.”
Senator Padraig MacLochlainn tweeted this picture of the packed room, captioned #HisMemoryWillLiveOn
“The assassins entered and left the Fullerton home in the early hours of the morning with ease, obviously familiar with the area and made their getaway without hitch. They certainly had detailed local knowledge. In advance of the attack, they took over a Bed and Breakfast about a mile from Eddie’s home. They then stole the family car and a sledgehammer before making their approach to Eddie’s house. They pulled into the driveway of a house vacated only two weeks before. This allowed them to go through fields to the rear of Eddie’s house which is at the end of a narrow cul de sac.”
“A key witness claims that he saw an unmarked RUC car pick up three men in military fatigues on the Derry-Donegal border 30 minutes after the shooting. It is claimed that the pick-up happened close to where the UDA team’s car was abandoned. And in June 1991 a World in Action programme revealed that Eddie Fullerton’s photograph and other details were contained in an RUC intelligence file found in the possession of the UDA/UFF.”
“This is the tortuous legacy of collusion that has been left unsolved to this day.”
“Fine Gael councillor, Terence Slowey who is the Cathaoirleach of Donegal County Council, gave a very moving entry to the Lecture, after being introduced by Sinn Fein Councillor Jack Murray who acted as MC for the evening. There was a poignancy to this introduction because it is the first time I have witnessed a representative of the council other than Sinn Fein political representatives raise their voice in relation to this abhorrent crime and show support to the family in their quest for justice.”
Terence Slowey, Cathaoirleach of Donegal County Council
“Eddie’s daughter Amanda, in her testimony to the packed conference hall was reliving that horror as she described the type of loving father he was and how he met his death. She told us that after Eddie Left home at the age of eighteen, he traveled to Scotland in search of work before settling in Birmingham where he met and married his Wife Diana. During this time the plight of Irish republician prisoners being force fed in English prisons impacted greatly on him and he joined Sinn Fein in Birmingham.”
“On returning home in 1975 he threw his weight behind the fight for basic human rights for Catholics/nationalists in the six counties and stood successfully as a Sinn Fein candidate in local elections in 1979. He became a republican icon in his fearless stance of standing up for a community beleaguered by sectarian loyalist extremists on one side of the border, and for the day to day upkeep of rights and entitlements in seeking better living conditions on the other side.”
“Unfortunately the family are rightfully and consistently outraged over the major hostility they faced from Irish authority’s including the state broadcaster RTE when they began to ask in-depth and uncomfortable questions. To date the Garda Siochana have refused to cooperate with the Ombudsman’s or divulge any requests for information in relation to the murder investigation which was severely lacking in depth and overall scrutiny throughout all avenues of the very limited hunt for the killers.”
“Eddie never asked for much in his lifetime apart from an Ireland free off British troops, a just and equal society for all its citizens irrespective of creed or colour, was that really too much to ask for? It certainly seemed to be enough to warrant his murder.”
Terence Slowey presents a book of all Eddie Fulleton’s council motions to his widow, Diana
“Dr Emmet O’Connor gave an inspiring speech on the suppression and revival of the Irish Language, where he explained how English, the language of the colonists was perceived and purported as the language of progress, and Irish was degenerated at every opportunity by the oppressors scholarly think-tank, who explained the war in Ireland as a war of civilisation.”
“Professor Brendan Mac Suibhne gave an informative and hilarious insight into Irish life pre 1740s. An era when grain was the main source of food before the humble potato replaced it. He gave an insight into the war of independence in Donegal, when his grandfather Charlie McGuinness among others was a flamboyant member of an IRA flying column in the south-west of the county, had a union jack tattooed on the souls of his feet so that he could tramp on it every day.”
“To bring an inspirational afternoon to a close, Diana Fullerton Eddies ‘widow’ was presented with a book containing all the motions put forward by Eddie in the county council offices as a sitting councillor by An Cathaoirleach of Donegal County Council Terance Slowey.”
Words by James Woods
