Milltown may refer to:

Places[link]

Canada[link]

• Milltown, Newfoundland and Labrador

Ireland[link]

• Milltown, County Cavan
• Milltown, County Kerry
• Milltown, Dublin, a suburb of Dublin
• Milltown, County Galway
• Milltown, County Kildare
• Milltown, County Westmeath
• Miltown Malbay, County Clare
• Glenmalure Park or Milltown, the former home of Shamrock Rovers F.C.

United Kingdom[link]

• Milltown, Cornwall, England
• Milltown, Derbyshire, England
• Milltown, County Antrim, a village in Northern Ireland
• Milltown Cemetery, a cemetery in Belfast

United States[link]

• Milltown, California, alternate name of Burkeville
• Milltown, Indiana
• Milltown, Kentucky
• Milltown, New Jersey
• Milltown, South Dakota
• Milltown, Wisconsin
• Milltown (town), Wisconsin
• Milltown, Virginia

Other[link]

• Milltown Reservoir Superfund Site on the Clark Fork River Basin in Montana, USA
• Earl of Milltown, title in the Peerage of Ireland
• Milltown GAA, Gaelic Athletic Association club in Kildare
• Milltown GAC, Gaelic Athletic Association club in Galway
• RAF Milltown

See also[link]

• Miltown, a brand name for the mild tranquilizer meprobamate
• Mill town, a settlement that developed around one or more mills or factories
• Milton (disambiguation)

This disambiguation page lists articles associated with the same title. If an internal link led you here, you may wish to change the link to point directly to the intended article.

The Milltown Cemetery attack (also known as the Milltown Cemetery killings or Milltown Massacre^[1][2]) took place on 16 March 1988 in Belfast's Milltown Cemetery. During the funeral of three Provisional IRA volunteers, Ulster Defence Association (UDA) volunteer Michael Stone attacked the crowd with hand grenades and pistols, killing three and wounding over sixty.

Background[link]

On 16 March 1988, Provisional IRA members Daniel McCann, Seán Savage and Mairéad Farrell, who had been killed by the SAS in Gibraltar, were due to be buried in the republican plot at Milltown Cemetery, Belfast. In a change from normal security procedures, the Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) and British Army had agreed^{[clarification needed]} to stay away from the funeral.^{[citation needed]} The funeral service and requiem mass went ahead as planned, and the cortege made its way to Milltown Cemetery, off the Falls Road.

Attack[link]

As the coffins were being lowered into the ground, a burst of gunfire was heard. At first, it was mistaken for the usual three-volley salute given at IRA funerals and some people even applauded. However, it was not a salute. A lone UDA member from East Belfast, Michael Stone, had infiltrated the crowd of mourners in an attempt to eliminate Sinn Féin leaders Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness^{[citation needed]} with several RGD-5 hand grenades, a Browning Hi-Power 9mm pistol and a Ruger .357 Magnum revolver. Stone killed three people: Catholic civilians Thomas McErlean (20) and John Murray (26), and IRA member Caoimhín Mac Brádaigh (30), who had tried to disarm him. The whole event was recorded by television news cameras.

Stone made his escape towards the motorway, chased by several members of the crowd, but continued firing his handguns and throwing hand grenades at his pursuers. Stone made it as far as the M1 motorway, but was caught by the crowd, who began beating him and shouting that they would kill him. He was eventually put in the back of a car and was being driven away to be shot by the IRA, when the car was intercepted by the RUC, who arrested him and took him to Musgrave Park Hospital for treatment of his injuries. Stone later confessed to the three killings at Milltown and a further three paramilitary killings committed beforehand. The final toll was three dead and upwards of sixty injured.

Aftermath[link]

At his trial, Stone received sentences totalling 682 years, but was released after serving just 13 years as a result of the Good Friday Agreement. Apart from time on remand spent in Crumlin Road Prison, Stone spent all of his sentence in HM Prison Maze.

Shortly after the Milltown killings, one of Stone's victims, Caoimhín Mac Brádaigh, was being buried when two plainclothes British Army Corporals (Derek Wood and David Howes) in an unmarked car drove into the path of the funeral cortege — apparently by mistake.^[3] Scenes relayed on live television showed the two corporals waving their guns before being cornered by black taxis and dragged from their car before being taken away by republicans to be beaten, stripped naked, and then shot dead.^[4][5][6][7] This event is often referred to as the corporals killings.

The Browning pistol Stone used during the killings was grabbed by the mob on the day of the attack and was eventually used by an IRA unit at Belfast to ambush a combined RUC/British Army patrol on 13 October 1990. A constable was shot dead and another badly injured.^[8]

In his autobiography, None Shall Divide Us, Stone claimed that he had received "special assistance" from RUC operatives in carrying out the cemetery attack. He also stated that he deeply regretted the hurt he had caused the families of those he killed, and paid tribute to the bravery of two of the men who had tried to disarm him at the cemetery, John Murray and Caoimhín Mac Brádaigh, whom he shot. Stone said in the book "I didn't choose killing as a career, killing chose me".

In November 2006, Stone was arrested while attempting to gain entry to the parliament buildings at Stormont while armed with an imitation handgun, three knives, a hatchet, a garrotte and several crude homemade explosive devices all of which failed to explode.^[9] On 8 December 2008 Stone was jailed for 16 years for attempting to murder Martin McGuinness and Gerry Adams.^[10]

See also[link]

• Timeline of Ulster Defence Association actions
• List of massacres in the United Kingdom

References[link]

External links[link]

• Milltown Cemetery Killings — from the CAIN project at the University of Ulster
• Photograph - People ducking as Stone shoots Belfast Telegraph archives