About the Shankill Butchers

There is a song out there by the Decembetists called Shankill Butchers. It is in relation to an actual occurnce of events and is rather haunting. To listen to that song here, know about the events, its just creepy. But I think that most Americans (who would know the song) probably don't know about the events, so here is what Wikipedia says about the Shankill Butchers.

First, the lyrics:

The Shankill butchers ride tonight

You better shut your windows tight

Theyre sharpening their cleavers and their knives

And taking all their whisky by the pint

Cuz everybody knows

If you dont mind your mother's words

A wicked wind will blow

Your ribbons from your curls

Everybody moan everybody shake

The shankill butchers wanna catch you

Awake

They used to be just like me and you

They used to be sweet little

But something went horribly askew

Now killing is their only source of joy

Cuz everybodys knows...[repeat]

The shankill butchers on the rise

Theyre waiting till the dead of night

Theyre picking at their fingers with their knives

And wiping off their cleavers on their thighs

Cuz everybod knows...[repeat]

The shankill butchers wanna kill you

The shankill butchers wanna cut you

The shankill butchers wanna catch you awake

The "Shankill Butchers" were a group of Ulster Volunteer Force members in Belfast, Northern Ireland, who abducted Roman Catholics usually walking home from a night out, tortured and/or savagely beat them, and killed them, usually by cutting their throats. Most of their victims had no connection to the IRA or any other republican groups.

The leader of the Shankill Butchers was Lenny Murphy. Born in 1952, he was possessed by a seething anti-Catholicism perhaps exacerbated by the fact that his surname was a traditionally Irish one and so more associated with Catholics. At school he was a bully and a thief, and as soon as he left at the age of 16, he became a member of the Ulster Volunteer Force.

By 1972, age 20, Murphy gathered together a gang of equally violent young men, the core being Murphy himself, Robert "Basher" Bates, and "Big" Sam McAllister, who used his huge frame to intimidate the Butchers' victims. In what is said to have been retaliation for the Bloody Friday bombings by the Provisional IRA, a Catholic man, Francis Arthurs, was abducted, beaten, and stabbed for over an hour before being killed.

The murder of Tom Madden is seen as one of the most terrible examples of the Butchers' brutality. Madden was abducted and then stripped naked. He was hanged upside down from the beam of a lock-up garage, and slowly skinned alive. He eventually died of slow strangulation.

On September 28 1972, Murphy shot and killed William Pavis, who was suspected of selling arms to the IRA. Murphy and his accomplice, Mervyn Connor, were arrested shortly afterwards and held in prison awaiting trial. However, Murphy killed Connor in the prison, just after forcing him to write a confession to Pavis' murder. The charges against Lenny Murphy relating to the murder of Pavis collapsed, although Murphy was held behind bars for a number of escape attempts.

In May 1975, Murphy was released from prison. He married and fathered a daughter, but like the rest of his gang he cared little for domesticity and would spend most of his time hanging around pubs on the Shankill Road, drinking heavily and plotting crimes. That October they raided a shop, and on finding out the four employees there were Catholics, Murphy shot three of them dead and ordered an accomplice to kill the fourth.

Another key figure of the Shankill Butchers was William Moore. He had worked as a butcher and had stolen several large knives and meat-cleavers from his old workplace, tools that would be put to a horrific use. Over the coming months, the gang began kidnapping Catholics late at night and viciously killing them.

Francis Crossan, aged 34 and father of two, was walking home from a night out, when he was spotted by one of the gang. This was around 12-12:30am. He was hit from behind with a wheel brace, and dragged into a taxi, which drove into the Shankill area. Francis was then tortured and badly beaten. He was repeatedly hit by Murphy, both punched and with the wheel brace. Murphy repeatedly said things like, "I'm going to kill you, you bastard!" Francis was then dragged into an alley, and his throat cut almost through the spine by Murphy. Pieces of glass found in Francis' head showed that a beer glass had been shoved into his head, either in the black taxi, or in the alley. The other victims were killed in a similarly horrific manner.

The Shankill Butchers also got into a feud with another loyalist gang, which quickly ended when Murphy brutally killed a member of the rival gang. There is much evidence to suggest Murphy and his fellow murderers were more like serial killers than terrorists, and that the political situation in Ulster allowed them a respect within their community they never would have had otherwise. They occasionally used guns, but preferred knives and cleavers (serial killers tend to prefer 'hands-on' weapons that involve getting up close to the victim), and rather than carry out crimes that were carefully planned, the gang usually went out hunting on a whim, usually at night after spending all evening drinking heavily. On one occasion Murphy and Bates impulsively shot and killed two people, believing they were Catholics, when in fact they were Protestants.

In March 1976, Murphy shot and injured a Catholic woman. He was arrested and subsequently pleaded guilty to a firearms charge. He ordered the murders to continue, and over the next year, with William Moore acting as the new leader, several more Catholics were abducted, tortured and hacked to death.