Derg Valley Victims' Voice

14/06/2026

HUGH CUMMINGS
39, single
Ulster Defence Regiment
Murdered by IRA terrorists whilst off duty
15th June 1982

Hugh, or 'Lexie' Cummings as he was widely known, had served part-time with the UDR for four-and-a-half years in the protection of his community.

Lexie also worked in a drapery store in the centre of Strabane. Republican terrorist sympathisers in the town knew Lexie was a Protestant and a member of the UDR, and passed this information on to the Provisional IRA. His lunch routine made him an easy target, and the absence of police patrolling the town centre on 15th June gave the sectarian terrorist gunmen the opportunity they wanted. They shot Lexie dead as he was getting into his Mini. He had no chance to defend himself.

Jim Shannon MP later asked why one of Lexie Cummings' killers wasn't tried for his murder. It is believed William Gerard McMonagle received one of Tony Blair's 'on-the-run' letters. McMonagle is a member of Sinn Fein and served as Mayor of Donegal County Council in 2017/18.

Lest we forget.

08/06/2026

EDWARD MEGAHEY
45, single
Ulster Defence Regiment
Murdered by IRA terrorists whilst serving the community
9th June 1972

Edward, known as 'Ted', lived outside Drumquin, just seven miles from Castlederg. He was an active member of Lower Langfield Parish Church. As well as serving in the UDR as a part-time soldier with E Company 6th Bttn, Edward Megahey held a civilian job as an electricity worker.

On 7th June 1972, Private Megahey had been travelling along the Buncrana Road in Londonderry in the last Land Rover in a three-vehicle convoy. The UDR patrol was on its' way to relieve troops manning the nearby border checkpoint when an IRA terrorist gunman opened fire on the vehicle in which Ted Megahey was the front-seat passenger. He was struck by one round in the head, and despite being rushed to hospital, died from his injuries two days later. A member of Private Megahey's family said he had taken the place of a colleague who had been unable to go on the patrol.

Private Megahey had joined the UDR just seven months prior to his murder. He was the 15th Ulster Defence Regiment soldier to be murdered by terrorist criminals.

No-one has ever been brought to justice for taking Edward's life.

Lest we forget.

03/06/2026

MICHAEL DARCY
28, single
Ulster Defence Regiment
Murdered whilst off duty by IRA terrorists outside his Dergview home, Castlederg
4th June 1988

Michael Darcy had served in the UDR at Rockwood for ten years. He had just returned to his home in the Dergview estate after taking part in a band parade with Castlederg Young Loyalists when he was shot in the back by a republican terrorist. Michael had no chance to defend himself and died instantly. His widowed mother found his body slumped at the steering wheel of his car, the engine still running.

Speaking at the funeral, the Bishop of Derry and Raphoe, Dr. James Mehaffey lashed out at those in the Castlederg community who had given terrorists information about Michael Darcy’s routine. Dr. Mehaffey said “those who gave information about his movements, enabling him to be set up as a target, were all involved in, and are as guilty of the crime of murder as the one who pulled the trigger and fired the lethal bullets.” Local republicans threw insults at the funeral cortege as it passed by nationalist-owned public houses in Castlederg.

No-one has ever been brought to justice for taking Michael's life.

Lest we forget

12/04/2026

IAN SPROULE
23, single
Civilian
Murdered by IRA terrorists
13th April 1991

Ian Sproule lived with his parents at their home on the Lisleen Road just outside Killen, not far form Castlederg. Ian was an avid Everton supporter, and was learning to play the guitar. He played the flute in Castlederg Young Loyalists and enjoyed the social aspects of being a member of a marching band.

On the night of Friday 12th April, Mr. Sproule attended a birthday party in Castlederg. He returned home after 1 o’clock in the morning of Saturday 13th April. As he parked his car in the street outside the family bungalow, three IRA terrorists who had been lying in wait in an outhouse opened fire on him from close range. Forty-four bullets were fired. Ian died instantly.

The shooting awakened Ian’s parents, Robert and Jean. Robert went outside to investigate and found his youngest son’s lifeless body slumped at the wheel of his car. He went inside to telephone for help. Shortly after doing so, the phone rang and a caller from the IRA spoke. He told Mr. Sproule to “go and see what the IRA had left him out in the street.”

Ian’s brother-in-law was a police officer and was first to the scene. Ian’s sister Jennifer says she went into hysterics when she heard her youngest brother was dead. “I went crazy, hysterical, screaming, crying. That pain – I though I was going to take a heart attack, I had this awful pain, my heart just broke in two” she recalls.

Ian Sproule was a member of Maghenageeragh Presbyterian Church, and his murder by the IRA was the ninth of a member of the churches’ congregations. At the service the family minister, the Rev. Roy Neill, told mourners “Protestant people in the Castlederg area are in a state of fury and distress after the latest murder in the town”, and went on to describe Mr. Sproule’s murder as “cold and cowardly”.

After Ian Sproule’s murder, the IRA claimed their victim had been a member of the UVF, in a bid to distract media attention away from what was simply a sectarian assassination of a defenceless young Protestant. On this claim, the Rev. Neill said “I would know that the family would completely deny that, and I have heard the police also say this is untrue.”

In the week after Mr. Sproule’s murder the IRA again tried to ‘justify’ murdering Mr. Sproule. A masked man, purporting to be from the IRA, passed papers to a reporter from the ‘Derry Journal’, including copies of confidential Garda security files alleging Mr. Sproule was suspected of having connections with loyalist paramilitaries, and that he had been involved in an arson attack on commercial premises in Co. Donegal. Mr. Sproule had never been charged with or found guilty of any terrorist offence. By the normal standards of justice in any free society, Ian was an innocent man. To the sectarian killers in the IRA, Ian Sproule was guilty of being a Protestant with Loyalist views, the sentence for which was death.

The Garda Commissioner at the time ordered an investigation into how files supposedly belonging to his police service were passed onto terrorists – an act of collusion between members of the Garda in Co. Donegal and the IRA. Mr. Sproule’s family has never been advised of the outcome of this investigation, although it was referred to in the Smithwick tribunal in 2012 when an RUC witness (‘Witness 68’) testified “beyond doubt that there was a leak from the Gardaí to the IRA” in relation to the Garda security document containing Ian Sproule’s details. To this day the Irish police and the Irish prime minister continue to dodge the Sproule family's questions relating to Irish State collusion in the murder of their younger brother.

This adds to the immense pain and grief the Sproule family continue to suffer. Ian’s brother John said: "You never understand until it happens to you. You never believe it could happen to you. But when it does, it never, ever leaves you. I think about Ian every day of my life.” His sister Jennifer says she can’t forgive Ian’s killers. “Some people can forgive, but I can’t. It probably was someone from Castlederg who killed my brother. It could have been someone I walked past every day.”

We remember the Sproule family on the 35th anniversary of Ian’s murder, and commend them in their continuing quest for truth and justice for Ian. Irish Republican criminals try to make ‘equality’ their mantra, but deny it to their victims. Bare-faced, shameless hypocrisy.

07/04/2026

WILLIAM PO***CK
27, married
Ulster Defence Regiment
Murdered whilst off duty by republican terrorists
8th April 1986

William Po***ck was a farmer and had served since 1979 as a part-time soldier in 'B' Company, 6th Battalion the Ulster Defence Regiment. He and his wife had moved into their new home at Ganvaughan, four miles outside Castlederg just a month before the attack that took his life.

A high state of alert had been in place in the Castlederg area following the murder by the Provisional IRA of another part-time UDR soldier, 18-year old Private Victor Foster, just 12 weeks previously. Mr. Po***ck’s wife recalls soldiers frequently lying in the fields around their new home just after they moved into it. This brought a tangible level of security to the Po***ck household.

However, as often happened in Castlederg, the high-profile security operation didn’t last long, leaving local part-time security force personnel as exposed as ever to the risk of an IRA assassination attempt. A local Protestant minister said the extra security presence had “dwindled away”, and that “the gut reaction of local people is that there was a big effort after Mr. Foster’s murder which has since been scaled down”.

On Tuesday 8th April 1986, William Po***ck was with his parents outside his new home. They were collecting a trailer from William’s place for use on the family farm. Mr. Po***ck senior had offered to attach the trailer to the car, in which his wife was sitting, but William said that he would do it. Unknown to him, a bomb had been attached to the trailer some time previously by IRA terrorists, most likely under cover of darkness on one of the preceding nights. The device exploded as William Po***ck lifted the trailer causing him to suffer serious injuries. He died at the scene before medical help arrived.

Mr. Po***ck’s parents escaped serious injury but were treated for shock at seeing their son murdered in front of them. A brother of William's was working nearby and on hearing the explosion, rushed to the scene. He could only comfort his brother as he lay dying at the side of the road. They had been planting potatoes together just a half hour before the bomb explosion.

The family was devastated; heart-broken with grief. William's murder wasn't the first time the IRA had brought death to the family - his mother's brother, Ronald Finlay had been murdered by IRA terrorists in Strabane less than three years previously.

Mr. Po***ck's widow says she can remember the 8th April 1986 like it was yesterday.

She said: "William took me to work every morning and that morning, like every other, he checked rigorously underneath and around the car to make sure there were no b***y trap devices before we got into it."

She continued: "Whilst we were travelling, we were talking about what else we would have to do to the new house we had moved into just five short weeks previously. William told me to telephone the store where we had purchased our carpets and flooring to find out what we owed them, and to let them know we would be in to pay the balance at the weekend. At 2.45pm I phoned the carpet store from my work, and the person I spoke to asked me if I was alright, and was I sure I was alright. I didn't know what they were talking about and proceeded to enquire about the price of the flooring."

"At three o'clock I was listening to the news on the radio and heard details were coming in that a part-time member of the security forces had been injured in an attack in Castlederg. I lifted the phone and phoned home and my Dad answered the telephone. Just at that moment I looked out of the window and saw my brother and a friend drive into my place of work. I recall screaming, because I instinctively knew what they were coming to tell me."

"My Mum later told me that just before my Dad died, nearly twenty years later, every year on the anniversary of William's death he told her that until the day he died he would never, ever get over my screams down the phone on the day the IRA murdered William, and how helpless he felt that there was nothing he could do to help me."

William Po***ck had attended his colleague Victor Foster’s funeral three months earlier, and had mentioned to his family afterwards that if anything was to happen to him, he did not want any of the Army ‘brass’ involved in his funeral arrangements or in the funeral itself. He believed it would only make it into a farce. As a result, there were no military trappings at Mr. Po***ck’s funeral. His coffin was simply draped in the Ulster flag. It was reported that a message of sympathy sent to the family by the Secretary of State, Tom King, was torn into four pieces and returned.

Rev. Roy Neill of 1st Castlederg Presbyterian Church conducted Mr. Po***ck’s funeral service. Committal followed in Castlederg cemetery. Mr. Po***ck’s widow was visited by a senior Army officer after William’s murder and told, “No stone will be left unturned until we find whoever killed your husband”. The officer promised Mr. Po***ck's widow whatever help she needed.

It never materialsed. William's widow was left to cope and re-build her life on her own.

A number of terrorist suspects were arrested in the aftermath of William Po***ck's murder. No charges were brought. No one has been brought to justice for William Po***ck’s murder.

We remember William’s family and loved ones on this, the fortieth anniversary of his murder.

01/04/2026

While most normal people are preparing to celebrate the Christian message at Easter, Sinn Fein IRa in Castlederg are preparing to cerebrate a terrorist bomber and would-be murderer.

The terrorist being eulogised by Sinn Fein is the individual who was given food from the lunchbox of his workmate and intended victim.

The generosity and kindness of his intended victim was rewarded with an attempt to murder him at his own home.

To the perpetrator it didn’t matter that his workmate would die. That his family would be robbed of a husband, father, provider and dear family member.

Sinn Fein don’t tell you any of this in their post - they are too busy rewriting history and glorifying terrorism.

There is nothing to celebrate in someone who poses as a colleague by day but who is a terrorist assassin by night. In doing so Sinn Fein prove once again they are their own biggest obstacle to achieving their political goals. They also demonstrate the hypocrisy of their position - condemning a Republican bomb attack on the same day as celebrating a Republican bomb attack from the past.

13/03/2026

WILLIAM BROWN QGM
Royal Ulster Constabulary
18, single
Murdered whilst serving his community
13th March 1977

William Brown was from Castlederg, Co. Tyrone. He received his education at Erganagh Primary School and Castlederg Secondary School. He was recognised as being a fine sportsman and enrolled in the RUC Cadets when he was sixteen. Just after he turned eighteen he joined the RUC as a full-time constable, passing out from the training Depot in November 1976. After a short posting in Belfast he was transferred to Lisnaskea in Co. Fermanagh, an environment more akin to that of his native Castlederg.

Constable Brown was on duty on Sunday 13th March and at 2.40pm he left Lisnaskea RUC station to go on mobile patrol in an unarmoured and unmarked Ford Cortina. William was the driver, and was accompanied in the vehicle by a Reserve Constable and a female Constable. As the patrol reached Ballagh Crossroads in the townland of Kilturk North less than half an hour later, a gang of IRA terrorists opened fire on the police car with high velocity weapons, hitting the two male officers who were in the front of the vehicle.

The Reserve Constable, although injured in his right arm and leg, returned fire and Constable Brown, despite being injured, managed to drive the police car out of the immediate scene of the ambush before crashing into a field a short distance away. The police officers could not call for help as both radios in the car were broken. As was routine at that time the female police officer was unarmed, but managed to draw William’s firearm and return fire at the terrorists to protect her wounded colleagues, scaring the IRA gang off from pursuing their victims further.

When help arrived fellow officers administered first aid to their injured colleagues. Despite doing all they could to save William’s life, he was seriously injured by three gunshot wounds to his back, and he died before medical assistance arrived 45 minutes later.

Members of William’s family were at home in Castlederg watching the evening news when the report came on the TV that a police officer had been shot dead in Lisnaskea earlier that afternoon. At that time they were unaware it was William who had been brutally murdered.

Constable Brown’s funeral was held at Derg Parish Church, and was conducted by Canon Northbridge and the Bishop of Derry and Raphoe, Dr. Robin Eames. Dr. Eames told the congregation that “History might one day say to us that Northern Ireland asked too much of the RUC.” Dr. Eames spoke at length about attempts by republicans to blacken the forces' name, but even in the context of their campaign of murder and propaganda, the record of the RUC shone out as an example to policing across the world. He addressed the RUC officers in the church, saying “Wear your uniform with pride”.

William’s courage in driving his companions away from the scene of the IRA gun attack, despite being severely injured, and having had just four months experience as a fully-fledged police officer, was recognised when he was posthumously awarded the Queens Gallantry Medal on 13th February 1981. The QGM recognises “exemplary acts of bravery.” Her Majesty the Queen later made the presentation of William’s posthumous QGM to his sister and a brother at Buckingham Palace.

William Brown was the one hundredth RUC officer to be murdered in Northern Ireland by terrorists, and at just eighteen years and ten months old, William was also the youngest police officer to be killed in the Troubles. He was the first British police officer to be posthumously awarded the QGM. Behind these facts and statistics, William was a brother, a son, boyfriend, and a brave and dedicated police officer.

Several arrests were made in connection with the attack on Constable Brown and his two police colleagues, but no charges were made and no-one has been convicted of William Brown’s murder.

Lest we forget.

08/03/2026

Remember on International Women’s Day the often unsung heroes of the Troubles.
The women who stood guard by their husbands as they lived and worked the land along the border, always anticipating an IRA attack.
The women who wore a police or Greenfinch uniform, prepared to serve their community and put their lives on the line - for many years unarmed with no weapon with which to defend themselves.
And in particular we remember the women who carry a broken heart to this day, robbed of their life partner by sectarian murderers and left to raise their children on their own 💔

Lest we forget their insurmountable courage

02/03/2026

THOMAS LOUGHLIN
Ulster Defence Regiment
44, married with a family
Murdered whilst off duty outside his family home
Spamount, Castlederg
2nd March 1984

Lest We Forget

27/02/2026

Well said Carla Lockhart MP
The Irish State has covered up collusion between its agencies, Sinn Fein and IRa terrorists for too long. They are good at lecturing the British Government about its failings, whilst deliberately ignoring their own.
Families here, including the Sproules, have patiently engaged with Irish prime ministers and presidents, police and the ombudsman, with promises of help and support in accessing truth and justice.
They still haven’t received the long-promised co-operation. Actions speak louder than words.

https://www.facebook.com/share/p/1EDy5tanRR/?mibextid=wwXIfr

Today, the Irish government said they will offer “the fullest possible cooperation” when it comes to sharing information on trouble-related incidents.

𝗙𝗼𝗿𝗴𝗶𝘃𝗲 𝗺𝗲 𝗶𝗳 𝗜 𝗱𝗼𝗻’𝘁 𝘁𝗿𝘂𝘀𝘁 𝗮 𝘀𝗶𝗻𝗴𝗹𝗲 𝘄𝗼𝗿𝗱 𝗼𝗳 𝗶𝘁.

For over 40 years, families searching for the truth have faced obstruction, delay, and refusal. Information was withheld. Accountability was avoided. Opportunities to do the right thing came and went.

I have previously mentioned the names of Harry Breen, Bob Buchanan, and Ian Sproule, cases where there have been findings and evidence of collusion that raise very serious questions. These are real men and real families who have endured decades of frustration while simply asking for honesty and transparency.

So I won’t be applauding carefully chosen phrases like “the fullest possible cooperation.” Words are easy. Proof is harder.

If they are serious, then open the files and release the truth.

I won’t hold my breath!