Harry Gargan was only 12 years old when his sister Margaret, just a year older, was killed. Margaret was one of six people killed in the Springhill estate in west Belfast. The shootings, which killed three Catholic teenagers, a father-of-six, and a priest, are believed by their families to have been carried out by the British Army.
Hundreds of killings during the decades-long conflict in Northern Ireland remain unsolved or uninvestigated. For families like the Gargans, justice has been elusive, their pleas for answers met with silence or delay. Now, the Northern Ireland Troubles (Legacy and Reconciliation) Bill threatens to formalise that silence. The bill will halt criminal and civil investigations as well as inquests, replacing them with inquiries conducted by a new body empowered to offer conditional amnesties for perpetrators.
Dubbed the "Bill of Shame" by its critics, it has united opposition across political lines. Unionists argue that IRA killers were never sufficiently held accountable, while nationalists say the legislation denies long-awaited investigations into the actions of the British Army and loyalist paramilitaries. For victims and survivors, the bill represents a profound betrayal, stripping away access to truth, justice, and accountability.
