The Troubles

During the Troubles, the Donegall Road was the scene of a number of attacks by paramilitaries. In April 1972, Joseph Gold, a British Army soldier, was killed on the road after stopping a Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA) vehicle at a checkpoint.^[10]

On 29 January 1973, Peter Watterson, a 15-year-old Catholic civilian, was shot dead as he stood outside a shop at the corner of the Donegall and Falls Roads whilst two days later the body of another Catholic teenager, Gabriel Savage, was found on a grass verge on the Donegall Road. Both killings are recorded as the work of unspecified loyalists.^[11] Henry McDonald and Jim Cusack however say that both killings were the work of a UDA team based in the Village area.^[12] Francis Smith was killed by the IRA in retaliation for the killings just a few days later in Rodney Drive. On 13 May of the same year, two more soldiers, Thomas Taylor and John Gaskell, were killed by an IRA explosive left in an abandoned factory on the nationalist part of the road, whilst on 5 July, Catholic Robert Clarke was killed at his place of work by the UDA.^[11] On 29 September 1974, Gerard McWilliams, a Catholic, was found stabbed to death in another UDA attack.^[13] The following year on 28 April, the UDA attempted to kill another Catholic working on railway lines close to the Donegall Road, but they mistakenly shot and killed his colleague Samuel Grierson, a Protestant.^[14]

During the 1980s, Loyalist paramilitaries from the Donegall Road also killed civilian taxi driver Paddy McAllister in Rodney Drive, while IRA volunteer James 'Skipper' Burns was shot and killed in his house in the same street by the UVF. Previously, in 1979, Sadie Larmour, a middle-aged woman was shot dead in her home. In 1984, Loyalist paramilitary figure Michael Stone killed milkman Paddy Brady, who served the area, leaving a nearby dairy. Roy Butler, an off-duty member of the Ulster Defence Regiment was killed by the IRA, whilst he shopped at Park Centre on 2 August 1988. In late 1991, the road was the scene of four killings in quick succession. On 10 August, Catholic civilian James Carson was shot and killed in his shop on the corner of the Donegall and Falls Roads, in an attack claimed by the "Loyalist Retaliation and Defence Group", actually a code name used by the Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF). On 10 September, John Hanna, a 19-year-old member of the UVF, was killed by the IRA at his home in the Village. The Republican group struck again on 13 November, when they entered a house on Lecale Street in the Village and killed William Kingsberry and his stepson Samuel Mehaffey. Kingsberry was a member of the Ulster Defence Association (UDA) and Mehaffey was with the Red Hand Commando (RHC).^[15]

On 7 September 1993, Stephen McKeag, and two other volunteers in C-Company of the UDA West Belfast Brigade, entered a hairdresser's shop on the upper Donegall Road and shot the proprietor Sean Hughes dead. Although brought to trial, McKeag – known as "Top Gun" – was not convicted after eyewitness testimony did not stand up to scrutiny.^[16] The following year, the RHC killed 31-year-old Margaret Wright at a social club on Meridi Street and dumped her body in an empty house in the Village. Wright was taken for a Catholic although in fact, she was Protestant.^[17] The most recent sectarian killing to occur on the road took place on 21 January 1998 when the UDA shot and killed Catholic Benedict Hughes, outside his place of work on Utility Street near Sandy Row.^[18]

In terms of paramilitary organization, the Donegall Road has also seen much activity. In late 1970 John McKeague, who had earlier founded the Shankill Defence Association, attempted to establish a similar "defence association" in the area amongst loyalist residents, but the plan floundered when leaders of the local branch of the Ulster Constitution Defence Committee warned their members and supporters not to associate with McKeague, whilst also spreading the rumour that he was a "fruit".^[19] The UDA would soon take root on the Donegall Road however, forming part of the movement's South Belfast Brigade. Variously commanded by John McMichael, Jackie McDonald and Alex Kerr, the South Belfast Brigade covered the largest area of any UDA brigade, including not only south Belfast but all of Lisburn and everywhere in between and, despite its name, active units as far away as South County Down, Cookstown, Lurgan and even County Tyrone and County Fermanagh.^[20] The Village area of the Donegall Road was a centre of activity for the UDA, and the unit it shared with the neighbouring Sandy Row was one of the brigade's two most active units, along with that in Lisburn.^[21] Alex Kerr would later switch from the UDA to the Loyalist Volunteer Force and his move briefly gained some support in the Village, where graffiti attacking the UDA-linked Ulster Democratic Party appeared. This however proved short-lived, and before long Kerr was forced to flee Belfast for the LVF's Mid-Ulster base of operations.^[22]

A series of racially motivated attacks, carried out on the homes of immigrants in the area in January 2004, were blamed on local members of the UVF, with even the local spokesman for the UVF-linked Progressive Unionist Party (PUP) conceding that UVF members had been behind the attacks. He did however add that the UVF leadership had not sanctioned the attacks.^[23] Four members who were said to be behind the attacks were subsequently "arrested" by the UVF leadership, who issued claims that two of those held responsible had links to the far right British National Party.^[24] The leader of the Donegall Road UVF was subsequently stood down by Supreme Command.^[25]

Republican activity in the St. James's area of the Donegall Road is commemorated by a garden of remembrance as pictured. 21-year-old Peter Wilson, one of sixteen people believed or confirmed to have been abducted, killed and buried in unmarked graves by republicans, and known collectively as "the Disappeared", was a native of the St. James's area. Wilson disappeared in July 1973 with his body not recovered until 2 November 2010.^[26]